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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


A  PEIMER  OF 
EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

FOB  YOUNG  PEOPLE  IN   SCHOOLS 
AND  FAMILIES 

BY 

J.  N.  LARNED 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


Copyright,  1902, 
BY  J.  N.  LARKED 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  November,  1902. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

PAGE 

Meanings  of  the  word  "  right "     ....  1 

The  idea  of  straightness 3 

The  moral  meaning 4 

The  word  "  wrong  " 5 

A  straight  line 7 

Why  the  "  right  line " 8 

The  line  of  Tightness    ......  10 

The  line  of  truth 11 

The  line  of  the  Golden  Rule         ....  14 

CHAPTER  II 

THE   NATURAL   IMPULSE   TO  DO  RIGHT  AND  OUR  FREE- 
DOM  TO   OBEY   OR   DISOBEY   IT 

The  physical  law  of  motion  parallel  to  the  moral 

law  of  conduct       ......  20 

Our  freedom  under  the  law 22 

Our  freedom  gives  our  conduct  its  moral  quality  23 

Our  freedom  exalts  us 24 


176304 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  III 

THE  TRUST  OF  OUR  MORAL  FREEDOM 

The  destiny  of  man  in  his  own  hands   ...  27 

What  might  be 28 

The  easy  gift  we  can  make  to  the  bettering  of  the 

world         . 30 

Effects  on  ourselves 31 

The  high  privilege  of  our  freedom  to  do  right      .  34 

CHAPTER  IV 

SELF-CONTROL   AND   THE   FORMATION   OF  HABIT 

Forces  in  conflict 38 

We  are  not  puppets 40 

But  we  can  be  puppet-like         ....  41 

Self-mastery  never  impossible      ....  42 

Habits,  and  their  power 44 

Habit-making  in  childhood 45 

Habit-cultivation 47 

Franklin's  plan  of  habit-cultivation      ...  50 

Other  examples  and  opinions    ....  55 

CHAPTER  V 

CONFUSED  NOTIONS  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG  AND  THEIR 
PRINCIPAL  CAUSES 

Thoughtlessness  on  the  subject     ....  64 

Tribal  notions 66 

Views  of  slavery,  for  example      ....  68 
iv 


CONTENTS 

Mischievous  notions  of  law        ....  70 

The  object  of  human  law 73 

Legal  honesty  not  moral  honesty      ...  74 
Examples  and  opinions         .        .        0                 .75 

CHAPTER  VI 

INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

Integrity  is  wholeness 83 

Wholeness  is  health 84 

The  man  of  integrity 85 

The  "  sense  of  honor "  is  self-respect    .        .        .  86~ 

The  honest  man 88 

Honesty  to  oneself 90 

Examples  and  opinions 91 

CHAPTER  VII 

RIGHT   AND  WRONG  IN    "BUSINESS" 

All  "  business  "  supposed  to  be  an  arrangement 

of  reciprocity 97 

Naturally  on  the  line  of  the  Golden  Rule          .  98 

The  Golden  Rule  in  its  commercial  form      .         .  99 

A  beneficent  system,  not  a  barbaric  scramble    .  100 

The  treason  of  all  fraud 102 

The  two  Golden  Rules  in  business     .         .         .  103 

Betting  and  gambling 103 

Betting  and  gambling  in  so-called  "  business  "   .  106 

Speculative  trade  is  something  very  different       .  107 

Examples  and  opinions 109 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  VIII 

RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

The  governed  in  America  are  the  governors         .  118 

Responsibility  to  our  fellow  citizens  .        .  119 

Political  parties  a  means,  not  an  end    .        .         .  121 

The  mischief  of  party  feeling  as  a  habit   .         .  123 

The  needed  education  of  patriotism      .        .         .  124 

The  right  inspiration  of  American  patriotism    .  125 

Its  right  objects 127 

The  line  of  right  for  our  political  conduct         .  129 

Examples  and  opinions 131 

CHAPTER  IX 

SYMPATHY  —  BENEVOLENCE  —  HELPFULNESS 

Civilization  and  sympathy         ....  143 

The  claims  of  suffering 144 

Money-giving  "  charity  " 145 

Animal  suffering 148 

Cruelty  as  "  sport " 149 

CHAPTER  X 

GENTLEMEN  AND  GENTLEWOMEN  —  THE  IDEAL  OF 
CHARACTER  AND   CULTURE 

The  golden  chart  of  character      ....  152 
Good  manners  as  a  growth  on  the  substance  of 

good  character 156 

Gentlemen  and  gentlewomen        ....  158 


OF  THE 

1   UNIVERSITY 


ITY 

/ 


A  PRIMER   OF  RIGHT 
AND   WRONG 

I 

EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

THE  word  BIGHT,  as  we  all  know,  has 
a  number  of  meanings  that  seem  to  be 
not  much  alike.  As  we  use  it  in  geo- 
metry, speaking  of  a  "  right  line,"  we 
mean  a  line  that  is  straight.  We  use 
it  in  another  sense  when  we  Meanings  of 

the  word 

say  of  some  action  that  it  "rignt." 
was  "the  right  thing  to  do;"  and  in 
this  case  we  may  mean  that  it  was  the 
wisest  action  that  could  be  taken,  or  we 
may  mean  that  it  was  morally  the  best 
thing  to  do,  the  true  thing,  the  thing 

which  ought  to  be  done,  because  of  a 
1 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

goodness  in  itself  which  we  are  able  to 
see.  In  still  another  sense  of  the  word 
we  may  say  that  men  have  a  right  to 
the  free  use  of  their  minds  in  thought, 
and  of  their  tongues  in  speech,  and  of 
their  hands  in  work,  so  long  as  they 
harm  no  others  ;  and  then  we  mean  that 
if  such  freedom  is  taken  away  from 
them  they  are  abused  and  oppressed. 

Now,  these  and  other  meanings  of 
the  word  BIGHT  may  seem  to  differ 
widely,  but  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  all  of  them  grew  out  of  the  one 
simple  idea  which  is  expressed  in  the 
first  example  given  above,  namely,  the 
idea  of  a  straight  line.  It  appears  to 
be  the  fact  that  long  ago,  when  our 
language  was  being  slowly  made  up, 
the  word  which  we  have  shaped  finally 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

into  the  spelling  and  pronunciation  of 
this  word  RIGHT  was  used  first  to  ex- 
press the  idea  of  straightness,  The  ldea  Ol 
and  nothing  else.  That  was  8tralglltness- 
a  very  simple  idea,  which  men's  minds 
took  easily  from  their  eyes.  They 
could  see  straightness  in  many  things; 
but  it  is  possible  that  the  idea  of  it 
was  especially  impressed  upon  them 
by  the  tightened  strings  of  their  bent 
bows;  for  when  they  first  used  the 
word  straight,  it  meant  stretched,  — 
a  stretched  or  tightened  cord,  or  a  line 
of  any  kind  from  which  all  crooked- 
ness had  been  taken  out,  making  it 

RIGHT. 

The  first  use  of  the  word  RIGHT, 
then,  by  the  simple-minded  people  who 
invented  it,  was  probably  to  express 

3 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

just  so  much  of  an  idea  of  straightness 
as  their  sight  and  feeling  of  a  stretched 
string  could  convey  to  their  minds. 
But  afterward,  when  these  or  some 
later  people  began  to  form  moral  ideas, 
and  needed  a  word  to  signify  the  good 
quality  which  they  found  in  some  of 
The  moral  their  own  actions,  contrasted 
with  an  opposite  quality  in 
others,  they  seem  to  have  felt  that  it 
was  like  the  straightness  of  a  stretched 
line,  in  contrast  with  the  crookedness, 
the  wavering  and  turning,  of  other 
lines ;  and  so  they  called  it,  as  they 
had  called  the  straightened  line,  RIGHT. 
The  same  feeling  led  them  to  say  that 
acts  of  good  judgment  or  wisdom  were 
BIGHT  ;  and  then  to  use  that  expressive 
word  in  making  up  many  other  words, 

4 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

all  carrying  ideas  which  seem  to  be 
suggestive  in  some  way  of  the  stretch- 
ing of  things  into  straiglitness,  like  the 
tightening  of  a  cord.  Then,  of  course, 
they  had  need  of  a  word  to  mean  mor- 
ally the  opposite  of  BIGHT,  and  natu- 
rally, as  before,  they  took  one  already  in 
use,  which  bore  an  idea  that  Theword 
would  contrast  with  that  of 
the  straightened  cord.  The  word  they 
chose  has  come  to  our  language  in  one 
form  as  wrung,  meaning  twisted,  and 
in  another  form  as  WRONG,  meaning 
everything  that  is  not  BIGHT. 

So  we  find  that  BIGHT  and  WBONG, 
which  are  really  the  most  important  in 
their  final  meaning  of  all  the  words  that 
we  speak  or  write,  got  those  meanings 
at  the  beginning  from  the  very  simple 
5 


A  PRIMEK  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

ideas  of  straightening  and  straightness, 
for  one,  and  of  twisting  and  crooked- 
ness for  the  other.  The  thought  of  a 
straight  line —  a  "  right  line  "  —  is  the 
primary  thought  in  both.  Those  who 
made  our  language  have  given  it  to  us 
as  the  idea  on  which  to  form  our  no- 
tions of  BIGHT  and  WRONG,  and  when 
we  study  the  matter  closely,  we  see 
that  they  did  so  neither  ignorantly  nor 
by  accident,  but  with  a  wonderfully 
fine  sense  of  the  true  likeness  of  things. 
"We  find,  indeed,  that  this  simple,  repre- 
sentative idea  of  straightness  has  to  be 
kept  in  our  minds,  and  carried  distinctly 
into  many  practical  questions  between 
RIGHT  and  WRONG,  if  our  moral  under- 
standing is  to  be  clear  and  our  moral 
judgments  are  to  be  true.  There  is 
6 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

really  no  study  that  ought  to  be  more 
carefully  made. 

A  straight  line  may  be  described  in 
several  ways.     In  the  best  known  de- 
scription it  is  said  to  be  that  line  which 
marks  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points.     Euclid,  the  old  Greek  geome- 
ter, described  it  as  a  line  that  Astralgllt 
lies  evenly  between  its  points.  L 
When  we  look  at   a  straight  line,  in 


comparison  with  other  lines,  our  eyes 
tell  us  that  these  descriptions  are  true. 
"We  need  no  other  proof  than  the  see- 
ing. 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

But  other  facts  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  straight  line  are  apparent  to  us 
when  we  see  it.  One  is,  that  if  we 
draw  a  line  between  two  points  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  connecting  them,  or  re- 
lating them  to  each  other,  it  can  be  no 
other  than  a  straight  line,  because  one 
object  or  end  can  give  it  only  one  direc- 
tion. It  can  depart  from  straightness 
why  the  only  by  taking,  somewhere  in 

"right 

une."  its  course,  some  other  direc- 

tion for  a  time  (as  from  A  to  C,  for 
example,  instead  of  from  A  to  B),  in 
which  case  it  would  not  be  drawn  to 
the  sole  end  of  connecting  the  point  A 
with  the  point  B,  or  the  point  B  with 
the  point  A.  This,  therefore,  is  the 
true  line,  the  right  line,  of  connection 
between  A  and  B;  and  manifestly  it  is 
8 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

the  one,  and  the  only  one,  that  truly 
and  exactly  marks  the  relation  of  these 
two  points  to  one  another. 

Now  let  us  imagine  two  persons  in 
the  place  of  these  two  points,  and  then 


imagine   connections   or  relations  be- 
tween them  which  we  represent  in  a  fig- 
urative way  by  drawing  lines,  as  before. 
The  connection  imagined  may  be  any 

one  of  the  many  that  arise  out  of  the 
9 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

numberless  relations  existing  among 
men.  The  man  A  and  the  man  B  may 
be  talking  together,  or  they  may  be  buy- 
ing and  selling,  or  they  may  be  em- 
ployer and  employed  in  some  work,  or 
they  may  be  teacher  and  pupil,  or  they 
may  be  related  to  each  other  in  no  way 
except  as  fellow  beings,  one  of  whom 
needs  help  which  the  other  has  ability  to 
give.  Out  of  every  such  relation  there 
arises  some  action  or  some  feeling  that 
The  ime  oi  connects  the  two  persons,  so 
exactly  in  the  manner  of  the 
drawing  of  a  line  from  the  one  to  the 
other  that  we  could  find  no  other  com- 
parison for  it  so  perfect  if  we  tried; 
and  when  we  set  it  before  our  minds 
by  that  figure  we  cannot  help  feeling 
that  the  straight  line  represents  right- 
10 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

ness,  in  whatever  passes  between  the 
two  men,  and  that  no  other  line  could 
do  so  to  the  satisfaction  of  our  imagi- 
nation. 

Perhaps,  if  we  look  further,  we  can 
find  a  reason  for  this  feeling;  and  I  will 
pursue  the  search  by  imagining  that  I 
am  one  of  the  two  persons  whose  rela- 
tions or  dealings  with  each  other  we 
are  trying  to  represent.  I  put  myself, 
we  will  say,  in  the  place  of  the  man  A. 
I  suppose  myself  to  be  talking  with  the 
man  B,  of  some  matter  on  which  each 
wants  information  from  the  other.  I 
know  nothing  of  what  passes  in  his 
mind,  except  as  my  own  thinking  and 
feeling  lead  me  to  believe  Thelineof 
that  his  thoughts  and  feelings  tratlL 
must  be  moved  in  much  the  same  way. 
11 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

I  am  very  clearly  conscious  of  a  claim 
in  myself  to  be  told  what  is  true.  I  feel 
with  absolute  certainty  that  truth  is  due 
to  me,  and  that  I  should  be  treated  very 
badly  if  I  did  not  receive  it.  My  rea- 
son, moreover,  tells  me  that  the  infor- 
mation I  receive  from  B  will  be  of  no 
worth  to  me  unless  I  can  trust  it  to  be 
true.  Therefore  my  own  consciousness 
gives  me  a  clear  understanding  of  what 
ought  to  be  the  sole  purpose  of  B's 
words  to  me,  namely,  to  carry  to  me 
the  information  that  I  need  and  that  I 
can  trust  when  it  comes  to  me.  Here 
we  have  an  idea,  of  a  single  purpose 
giving  a  single  direction  to  something 
done,  which  is  exactly  parallel  to  the 
'  idea  of  straightness  in  the  line  from  B 
to  A.  But  the  line  that  is  straight  from 

12 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

B  to  A  must  be  equally  straight  from  A 
to  B;  and  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  un- 
derstand what  ought  to  be  in  B's  words 
to  me  without  knowing  that  the  same 
truthfulness  ought  to  be  in  mine  to  hiifo, 
since  I  cannot  doubt  that  he  is  a  beipg 
of  the  same  nature  as  myself,  who 
must  therefore  have  the  same  needs  and 
claims.  I  am  forced,  that  is  to  say,  to 
imagine  myself  in  B's  place  and  he  in 
mine,  and  to  comprehend  that  his  claims 
on  me  are,  in  the  nature  of  things,  the 
same  that  I  make  on  him. 

I  reach  the  same  result  if  I  imagine 
myself  to  be  trading  with  B,  or  work- 
ing for  him,  or  employing  his  labor,  or 
engaged  with  him  in  transactions  of 
any  other  kind.  In  my  own  claims  on 
him  —  in  my  sense  of  what  is  due  to 

13 


A  PRIMER    OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

me  from  him  —  I  always  have  that 
which  will  draw  the  Line  of  Right  back- 
Tile  invan-  ward  and  forward  between 

able  Line  of 

Right.  us,  in  both  directions  the 
same,  if  I  use  it  as  I  should.  I  have 
only  to  put  myself  in  his  place  and 
him  in  mine,  and  to  think  of  what 
would  be  satisfying  honesty,  or  fair- 
ness, or  faithfulness,  or  kindness,  or 
courtesy,  coming  from  him  to  me,  and 
I  learn  instantly  what  must  go  from  me 
to  him,  if  my  conduct  is  to  be  RIGHT. 

But  this,  you  will  say,  is  nothing,  af- 
ter all,  but  the  GOLDEN  RULE,  in  a  new 
guise.  So  it  is,  —  the  great,  wise,  won- 
derful, beautiful,  old  GOLDEN  RULE  ;  it  is 
just  that  and  nothing  more.  For  there 
is  nothing  more  than  that.  There  is  no- 
thing to  be  said  about  RIGHT  and  WRONG, 

14 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

so  far  as  concerns  our  dealings  with  one 
another,  that  was  not  summed  up  ages 
ago  in  the  simplest  and  grandest  of  all 
commandments :  "  "Whatso-  The  Qolden 
ever  ye  would  that  men  * 
should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to 
them."  It  is  a  command  which  men 
found  in  their  consciousness  and  con- 
science so  early  that  we  do  not  know 
when  it  was  first  put  into  words.  We 
find  it  in  the  teachings  of  Confucius, 
the  Chinese  apostle  of  morals,  who 
lived  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ, 
and  who  said  to  his  disciples,  "  What 
you  do  not  want  done  to  yourself,  do 
not  do  to  others."  We  find  it  also  in 
one  of  the  sacred  poems  of  the  ancient 
Hindus,  believed  to  have  been  composed 
about  five  centuries  before  Christ, 

15 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

where  it  is  given  in  lines  of  verse  which 
a  recent  scholar  has  translated  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  This  is  the  sum  of  all  true  righteousness  : 
Treat  others  as  thou  would'st  thyself  be  treated. 
Do  nothing  to  thy  neighbor  which  hereafter 
Thou   wouldst   not  have  thy  neighbor  do  to 
thee." 

And  we  have  it,  as  we  know  it  best, 
in  Christ's  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  But 
there  must  have  been  the  sense  of  it — 
the  instinct  of  it  —  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  minds  of  still  earlier  men,  when 
they  formed  the  idea  of  RIGHT,  as  a 
quality  in  itself,  and  named  it  with  the 
name  they  had  given  already  to  a 
stretched,  straight  line. 


16 


II 

THE  NATURAL  IMPULSE  TO  DO  EIGHT, 
AND  OUR  FREEDOM  TO  OBEY  OR 
DISOBEY  IT 

So  far  as  concerns  that  part  of  our 
conduct  which  touches  other  people,  — 
and  which  is  much  the  larger  part, — we 
find  ourselves  furnished  with  the  means, 
in  our  own  minds,  of  fixing  and  mark- 
ing the  Line  of  Eight.  In  other  mat- 
ters of  conduct,  relating  only  to  our- 
selves, for  example,  — to  our  minds,  to 
our  bodies,  to  our  capabilities  and  aims 
in  life,  etc.,  —  we  shall  see,  when  we 
come  to  consider  them,  that  the  reason 
or  principle  of  EIGHT  is  much  the 
same. 

But  if  the  learning  and  knowing  of 

17 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

RIGHT  from  WRONG  has  been  made  very 
easy  for  us,  by  the  natural  working 
of  our  thoughts,  our  imaginations, 
and  our  feelings,  is  there  anything  in 
our  nature  that  helps  us  likewise  to 
do  the  RIGHT  when  we  know  it  ?  Un- 
questionably there  is.  Unless  we  de- 
stroy it,  as  we  may  do,  by  persisting 
resistance,  we  are  always  conscious  of 
a  pull  from  some  feeling  within  us 
toward  the  RIGHT  action,  and  against 
any  departure  from  it,  whenever  we 
give  attention  to  see  what  the  RIGHT 
action  is.  We  can  be  heedless  of  what 
the  RIGHT  is,  and  so  escape  that  pull 
of  feeling  to  it  by  mere  recklessness  of 
action,  or  we  can  feel  it  and  defy  it, 
and  overcome  it,  to  our  hurt,  and  to 
our  ruin  if  we  persist  ;  but  it  is  always 

18 


THE  IMPULSE   TO  DO   RIGHT 

there,  planted  in  the  depths  of  our 
nature,  for  our  moral  help,  if  we  are 
willing  to  be  helped  to  do  BIGHT  and 
not  WRONG. 

What  is  it?  —  that  urgent  ought  to 
and  ought  not  to  which  every  human 
being  feels  so  often,  or  has  felt  ?  We 
call  it  "conscience ;"  but  this  is  only  giv- 
ing a  name  to  something  not  explained. 
What  is  the  force  in  it  that  we  feel  ? 
We  cannot  tell.  But  if  it  is  a  mystery, 
it  is  no  more  so  than  the  mystery  of  the 
force  which  drives  every  moving  body 
of  matter  in  a  straight  line  of  motion, 
and  which  resists  any  other  force  that 
would  swerve  it  from  the  straight  line. 
The  boy  who  turns  a  corner  when  he  is 
running  swiftly  feels  the  strain  of  that 
force.  Something  in  his  body  resists 

19 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

the  turn,  and  strives  to  keep  him  to  the 
straight  run.  If  he  has  studied  physics 
in  school,  he  knows  that  his  body  is 
trying  to  obey  what  is  called  a  "  law  of 
motion/'  and  that  is  all  that  science  can 
tell  him  about  it.  He  knows,  too,  that 
when  he  throws  a  stone  it  would  move 
on  in  a  never-bending  straight  line,  if 
the  air  did  not  resist  its  motion  and  if 
The  physical  gravitation  did  not  pull  it 

law  of  motion 

parallel  to  the  down  to  the  earth,  with  forces 

moral  law  o! 

conduct.  that  overcome  the  force  with 
which  it  was  thrown.  If  he  knows 
that,  he  knows  all  that  anybody  knows 
about  the  mysterious  impulse  in  all 
motions  of  matter  to  keep  them  in  the 
right  line.  We  only  know  it  to  be  a 
fact  of  the  material  universe,  which  we 
cannot  explain;  and  we  simply  mean 
20 


THE  IMPULSE  TO  DO  RIGHT 

that  it  is  invariable  when  we  call  it  a 
"  law."  We  know  just  the  same,  and 
no  more,  about  this  other  mysterious 
impulse  toward  a  Line  of  Eight  in  con- 
duet,  which  we  feel  in  ourselves  and 
call  conscience,  and  which  we  have  to 
resist  when  we  do  Wrong.  The  two  are 
strangely  alike,  and  one  seems  to  be,  as 
much  as  the  other,  a  "  Law  of  Nature," 
for  the  ordering  of  the  universe  in  one 
case,  and  for  the  ordering  in  the  other 
case  of  the  life  of  man. 

But  if  we  are  subject  to  a  "  law  "  of 
right  conduct,  strangely  parallel  to  the 
"  law  "  of  right  motion  which  all  matter 
obeys,  we  are  subject  to  it  in  a  very 
different  way.  The  stone  which  a  boy 
has  thrown,  and  the  flesh  and  bones  of 

his  body  when  he  runs,  are  so  impelled 
21 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

to  a  straight  line  of  motion  that  they 
cannot  do  otherwise  than  resist  any 
turn  from  it.  They  are  obedient  to  the 
law  of  their  motion  without  will  or 
choice.  It  is  a  law  to  them  which  en- 
forces itself.  If  they  are  swerved  from 
the  right  line  it  is  by  some  force  that 
acts,  not  in  them,  but  upon  them,  from 
the  outside.  But  the  impulse  to  right 
om  freedom  conduct,  on  the  contrary,  acts 

under  the 

!*•*•  in   a    conscious   mind   which 

feels  that  it  has  power  within  itself  to 
obey  or  disobey,  to  resist  or  to  yield. 
"We  are  free  to  let  the  impulse  give 
direction  to  our  conduct  or  not,  as  we 
will.  It  does  not  compel  us  to  keep 
ourselves  true  to  the  Line  of  Eight  in 
-what  we  do  ;  it  only  moves  us  to  re- 
member it,  and  urges  us  toward  the 
22 


THE  IMPULSE  TO  DO  RIGHT 

line.  It  is  given  us,  not  to  govern  us, 
but  to  actuate  us  helpfully  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  ourselves. 

This  freedom  to  do  RIGHT  or  to  do 
WRONG  is  what  stamps  on  our  con- 
duct the  character  called  moral,  by 
making  it  our  own.  If  that  freedom  is 
taken  away  from  any  act,  the  moral 
quality  of  the  act  is  gone.  If  a  man, 
for  example,  is  compelled  by  a  court  of 
law  to  pay  an  honest  debt  which  he 
would  not  pay  otherwise,  the  thing 
done  is  RIGHT,  but  there  is  0urJreedom 
no  Tightness  in  the  doing  of 


.  .         rm  .  7  moral  quality. 

it.     The  man  is  a  wrong-doer 
so  far  as  his  own  will  is  concerned; 
the  right-doing  is  not  his  own,  though 
the  act  may  seem  to  be.     And  jso,  if 
the  feeling  which   prompts  us   to   do 

23 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

BIGHT  had  power  to  compel  us  to  do  it, 
there  would  be  no  more  morality  in  our 
conduct  than  there  is  morality  in  the 
straight  flight  of  a  bullet  to  its  mark. 
There  would  be  no  more  character  in 
ourselves,  and  no  more  dignity  and 
nobility  of  being,  than  there  is  in  a 
machine.  It  is  our  moral  freedom  — 
our  freedom  of  choice  between  Good 
and  Evil,  BIGHT  and  WBONG  —  that  dig- 
nifies and  exalts  us  among  the  crea- 
tures and  creations  of  God,  and  no- 

Oni  freedom      thing  els6  COuld  Kft  US  tO  the 

exaltsus'  same  height.  Gifts  of  intel- 
lect are  nothing  to  compare  with  it. 
"We  might,  every  one  of  us,  have  the 
genius  of  Shakespeare  and  Michael 
Angelo  and  Julius  Caesar  combined  in 


24 


THE  IMPULSE  TO  DO  RIGHT 

our  brains,  and,  if  we  had  not  the 
power  to  rule  our  own  actions  by  our 
own  will,  we  should  be  infinitely  poorer 
in  the  worth  of  our  being  than  we  are 
now. 


25 


Ill 

THE  TRUST  OF  OUR  MORAL  FREEDOM 

THE  power  of  self-government  with 
which  we  are  endowed  is  not  to  be 
called  a  gift;  it  is  an  almost  incredible 
Trust.  It  not  only  trusts  our  own  des- 
tiny to  ourselves,  but  it  actually  trusts, 
or  seems  to  trust,  the  whole  final  out- 
come of  God's  creative  work  to  our 
treatment  of  it.  This  earth,  at  least,  is 
put  into  our  hands,  to  make  what  we 
will  of  it  and  of  ourselves,  its  inhab- 
itants. It  is  stored  with  all  possible 
helps  to  us,  in  natural  forces  and  mate- 
rials ;  we  are  given  intelligence  to  find 
them  out  and  to  use  them  for  the  en- 
richment and  beautifying  of  our  lives; 
we  are  given  the  understanding  of  a 

26 


THE  TRUST  OF  MORAL  FREEDOM 

Rule  of  Right  in  our  conduct  toward 
each  other  that  will  keep  us  in  perfect 
harmony  and  happiness  of  The  destiny 

of  man  in  his 

work  together,  for  the  com-  own  hands, 
mon  good;  we  are  drawn  toward  action 
in  accord  with  that  Rule  by  a  feeling 
created  in  us,  which  will  not  let  us  for- 
get it  or  violate  it  without  willful  in- 
tent; but  (and  here  is  the  grandeur  of 
the  part  we  perform  in  creation)  we 
are  trusted  with  the  freedom  to  do  with 
all  this  what  we  will.  The  outcome, 
good  or  evil,  is  what  we  and  our  fel- 
lows of  the  human  race,  past  and  fu- 
ture, are  helping,  or  have  helped,  or 
will  help,  to  make  it.  The  glory  or 
the  shame  of  triumph  or  failure  in  the 
creation  of  mankind  is  to  belong  to  the 
race  itself. 

27 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

]STow  think  for  a  moment  what  the  out- 
come would  be  if  a  time  were  reached 
when  no  human  being,  young  or  old,  did 
anything  to  another  which  he  would  not 
wish  to  have  done  to  himself  !  There 
would  be,  then,  of  course,  no  war,  and 
no  need  of  armies  or  horrible  battle- 
ships ;  there  would  be  no  crime,  and  no 
need  of  police,  except  for  helpful  ser- 
vice, in  dealing  with  the  mishaps  of  life ; 
What  there  would  be  little  for  law- 

makers and  courts  of  law  to 
do;  there  would  be  no  cruelty,  no  op- 
pression, no  hardness  of  dealing  with 
the  unfortunate,  no  dishonesty,  no  inso- 
lence, no  meanness,  no  discourtesy,  lit- 
tle or  no  quarreling  or  anger,  little  or 
no  preventable  suffering  in  the  world. 
This  is  not  a  fancy-painted  picture  of 

28 


THE  TRUST  OF  MORAL  FREEDOM 

what  might  be;  it  is  what  plain  reason- 
ing tells  us  would  come  to  pass  if  every- 
body followed  the  simple  Rule  which 
everybody  knows  to  be  the  Rule  of 
Right  Conduct  among  men,  and  which 
nobody  disputes.  It  would  be,  in  effect, 
hardly  less  than  the  making  of  this  earth 
into  the  likeness  of  heaven,  as  we  im- 
agine heaven  to  be;  and  how  simply 
and  easily  it  may  be  done ! 

That  is  to  say,  how  easily  each  one  of 
us  may  do  his  part  towards  heaven- 
making  on  earth;  and  the  adding  of 
part  to  part  might  some  time  produce 
the  celestial  whole.  The  question  to 
each  one  of  us  is  whether  his  life  shall 
contribute  to  that  outcome,  or  be  of  the 
number  that  keep  it  unattained.  Many 
persons  are  ambitious  to  contribute  to 

29 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

the  improvement  of  the  world  in  ma- 
terial ways,  —  by  building  canals,  or 
railways,  or  stately  edifices,  or  by  the 
adornment  of  cities,  all  of  which  are  ex- 
The  easy  gift  cellent  things  to  do;  but  one 

we  can  make 

to  the  better-    who  helps  to  rid  the  world  ot 

Ing  oi  the 

world.  cruelty  and  rapacity  and  dis- 
honesty and  meanness  and  rude  man- 
ners, by  simply  living  a  life  that  has 
no  such  thing  in  it,  is  making  a  con- 
tribution which  surpasses  the  worth  of 
railways  that  span  continents  and  of 
canals  that  join  seas.  And  this  is  a 
gift  to  the  bettering  of  the  world  which 
any  of  us,  young  or  old,  rich  or  poor, 
learned  or  unlearned,  can  make,  by  sim- 
ply doing  always  what  we  know  that 
we  ought  to  do. 

But  doing  what  we  know  that  we 

30 


THE  TRUST  OF  MORAL  FREEDOM 

ought  to  do  is  not  only  for  the  good  of 
the  world,  but  likewise,  and  far  more, 
for  the  good  of  ourselves.  We  take  in- 
finitely more  benefit  from  our  own  per- 
formance of  an  act  of  uprightness,  and 
infinitely  more  harm  from  an  act  of 
wrong,  than  the  good  we  bestow  or  the 
harm  we  inflict.  The  good  or  ill  we  do 
to  another  in  such  ways  only  touches 
some  circumstance  of  his  life  ;  but  the 
influence  which  comes  back  Eflectson 
from  it  to  ourselves  goes  ° 
deeply  into  our  nature,  —  refines  or 
coarsens  it,  lifts  or  lowers  it,  and  is 
either  inspiring  or  deadening  to  all 
that  is  best  in  soul  and  mind.  If,  for 
example,  a  man  is  defrauded,  he  suf- 
fers from  an  injury  done,  not  really  to 
himself,  but  to  the  circumstances  of 

31 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

his  life.  It  takes  something  from  the 
comforts  of  his  living,  or  from  his  en- 
joyments, or  from  his  expectations  and 
hopes  ;  it  burdens  him,  perhaps,  with 
new  anxieties  and  new  toils.  But,  no 
matter  how  cruelly  his  life  is  troubled 
by  it,  the  wrong  done  has  only  touched 
and  pricked  him  from  the  outside.  On 
the  other  hand,  think  of  the  case  of 
him  who  does  the  wrong,  —  who  pro- 
duces it,  from  evil  thoughts  and  avari- 
cious desires,  which  he  has  allowed  to 
grow  into  a  wicked  will  and  a  ruthless 
deed !  If  this  is  his  first  act  of  knav- 
ery, Nature  makes  it  hateful  and  hard 
to  him;  compels  him  to  feel  the  degra- 
dation of  it  and  the  shame.  In  the 
moment  it  is  done,  he  knows  that  he 
has  made  himself  a  meaner  being  than 

32 


THE  TRUST  OF  MORAL  FREEDOM 

he  was  before,  and  he  falls  forever  to  a 
lower  level  in  his  own  esteem.  Then 
all  dishonesties  lose  half  their  repug- 
nance to  him,  and  all  the  defenses  of 
his  integrity  are  half  broken  down.  A 
second  temptation  to  fraud  will  find  less 
to  overcome  in  him,  and  a  third  still 
less  ;  and  at  last  the  fallen  man  will  be 
wholly  contented  with  his  place  among 
the  predatory  creatures  of  the  world, 
and  will  slink  through  life,  hunting  for 
prey.  Surely  he  is  the  greater  victim 
of  the  wrong  ! 

Such  effects  on  ourselves  of  what 
we  do  are  consequent  upon  our  moral 
freedom,  which  causes  every  act  of 
right  or  wrong  doing  to  be  an  exercise 
of  some  trait  of  character,  good  or  bad, 
and  so  invigorates  it,  as  the  muscles  of 


A  PRIMEE  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

the  body  are  invigorated  by  the  work 
they  do.  Thus  we  become  the  makers  of 
our  own  characters,  and  our  freedom  to 
act  rightly  or  wrongly  is  seen,  in  that 

The  privilege    vieW>  tO   be  the   highest  of    all 

toSfto'  the  privileges  we  enjoy.  It  is 
common  to  call  right-doing  a 
Duty,  and  so  it  is  if  we  give  a  proper 
meaning  to  the  word.  But  our  idea 
of  Duty  is  apt  to  be  the  idea  of  an 
unwelcome  obligation ;  something  to 
be  done  which  we  find  more  merit  in 
doing  because  it  is  disagreeable  and 
hard;  and  this  is  an  idea  which  fits  no 
true  conception  of  the  doing  of  Right. 
The  more  carefully  we  consider  what 
that  is,  in  its  nature,  and  what  results 
from  it,  to  ourselves  and  to  the  world 


THE  TRUST  OF  MORAL  FREEDOM 

of  mankind  at  large,  the  more  clearly 
we  can  see  that  when  we  prefer  Eight 
to  "Wrong  we  are  exercising  the  most 
precious  of  all  the  Privileges  of  man. 


35 


IV 

SELF-CONTROL,  AND    THE  FORMATION 
OF  HABIT 

OUR  freedom  to  choose  between  Eight 
and  Wrong  is  part  of  a  general  power 
of  self-control,  or  self-government,  with 
which  we  are  nobly  endowed.  We  are 
animated  in  our  being,  we  may  say,  by 
various  forces,  not  always  in  agree- 
ment, and  there  is  something  in  us  — 
the  something  which  makes  up  the  "  I  " 
and  "  Me"  of  each  one  of  us  —  that  has 
a  power  of  government  over  them  all, 
to  constrain  them  to  work  together,  to 
one  common  end.  We  may  call  them 
forces,  because  we  have  no  better  name ; 
we  are  only  conscious  of  their  action 


SELF-CONTROL 

in  us,  and  know  nothing  as  to  what 
they  are.  One  of  them  forms  ideas  in 
our  minds,  and  compares  and  combines 
them,  in  acts  of  judgment  and  reason- 
ing; another  sways  us  with  emotions, 
of  love,  hatred,  anger,  and  the  like ;  an- 
other colors  our  self-consciousness  with 
feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain;  a  fourth 
excites  us  to  desires  and  appetites, 
stirred  in  our  bodies  or  in  our  minds ; 
still  another  appears  in  what  we  call 
Will,  which  manifests  itself  in  every 
act,  but  which  nobody  can  even  de- 
scribe in  a  satisfactory  way;  and,  lastly, 
we  find  the  moral  impulse  which  urges 
us  toward  Right  Conduct,  when  we 
have  seen  intelligently  what  is  Right. 
It  may  be  that  these  are  only  differing 
forms  of  one  intellectual  force,  just  as 

37 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

heat,  light,  and  electricity  are  differing 
forms  of  one  physical  force ;  but  they 
Forces  m  seem  to  animate  us  sepa- 
rately, and  some  of  them  act 
often  in  strong  conflict  with  others. 
Our  passions  and  desires,  especially,  are 
often  in  conflict  with  our  judgment, 
pressing  us  to  do  things,  or  to  say 
things,  or  to  give  way  to  feelings, 
which  the  latter  advises  us  against,  and 
which  it  prompts  the  moral  impulse  to 
resist. 

Now,  somewhere,  in  or  over  these 
more  or  less  conflicting  forces  which 
animate  our  being,  there  is  something 
that  can  rule  them  to  order  and  agree- 
ment and  make  them  obey.  I  prefer  to 
believe  that  the  something  in  question 
is  not  in  them,  but  over  them,  and  that, 


SELF-CONTROL 

for  me,  it  is  what  I  feel  to  be  my  self. 
This  is  sometimes  disputed  by  people 
who  do  not  believe  that  the  judgments, 
passions,  desires,  and  will  of  a  man  are 
overruled  at  all,  by  any  supreme  au- 
thority in  his  being  that  can  bring  them 
under  control.  They  maintain  that  our 
state  of  being  is  a  state  without  govern- 
ment —  a  state  of  anarchy  —  in  which 
the  animating  forces,  as  we  have  called 
them,  are  left  struggling  together  un- 
til the  weaker  submit  to  the  stronger, 
and  that  the  outcome  of  conduct  and 
character,  in  all  persons,  is  just  what 
happens  to  result.  But  this  is  a  view 
which  brings  man  into  contempt,  as  a 
worthless,  poor  creature,  endowed  with 
nothing  that  differs  very  much  from 

the  springs  and  clock-wheels  in  such 
39 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 
puppets  as  are  made  for  the  amusement 

we  are  not  °^  a  child.  If  we  give  atten- 
tion to  the  working  of  our 
own  minds,  we  know  that  it  is  not  true. 
We  know  it  by  proofs  in  our  conscious- 
ness which  outweigh  any  argument  that 
can  be  brought.  Whenever  we  choose 
to  do  so  we  can  feel  a  power  in  our- 
selves to  master  any  passion,  any  appe- 
tite or  desire,  any  dread  of  pain,  any 
careless  habit  or  indolence  of  thinking, 
any  indifference  of  will.  We  can  feel 
a  power  to  strengthen  or  to  weaken  any 
one  of  the  forces  in  ourselves  that  act 
in  producing  thought,  passion,  desire, 
or  will.  We  can  feel  that  they  are  our 
servants  if  we  will  make  them  so;  but 
feel,  too,  at  the  same  time,  that  our  mas- 
tery over  them  can  easily  be  given  up. 

40 


SELF-CONTROL 

It  is  lost,  in  fact,  more  easily  than  it  is 
kept.  The  government  of  ourselves  is 
like  the  government  of  human  socie- 
ties, in  which  the  strength  and  firmness 
of  authority  must  never  fail.  But  they 
do  fail  if  unceasing  energy  and  watch- 
fulness are  not  exercised  in  maintain- 
ing them,  and  the  state  of  anarchy 
appears,  then,  at  once. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  not  by  nature 
the  kind  of  puppet  creatures  that  we 
should  be  if  we  had  no  power  of  self- 
control,  we  can  easily  sink  ourselves  to 
the  likeness  of  creatures  of  that  worth- 
less sort.  It  is  as  easy  as  any  indo- 
lence, or  any  carelessness,  or  But  we  can 

•   u-  j    j   •-<*•          •      *ePuPPet- 

any  yielding  and  drifting  in  m«>. 
life;  and  the  temptations  to  it,  from 
what  seem  to  be  pleasure  and  com- 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

fort,  are  often  hard  to  resist.  But 
what  pleasure  can  make  us  willing 
to  be  shamed  by  so  discrowning  and 
dethroning  ourselves  from  the  sover- 
eignty of  our  own  being,  and  submit- 
ting to  be  slaves  of  the  sensibilities  that 
we  were  appointed  to  rule?  "What  can 
make  it  worth  being  a  Man,  and  not  an 
insect  or  a  worm,  if  one  has  no  mas- 
tery over  the  endowments  of  the  Man? 
The  self-mastering  of  passions  and 
dispositions  of  body  and  mind  is  far 
harder  for  some  than  for  others,  being 
made  so  by  surrounding  influences  or 
by  inherited  weaknesses  and  traits ;  but 
seii-mastery  we  have  no  reason  to  believe 

never  impos- 

siwe-  that  it  was  ever  made  impos- 

sible to  any  man.     On   the   contrary, 
we  have  numberless  examples  to  show 

42 


SELF-CONTROL 

us  that  all  imaginable  weaknesses  and 
all  imaginable  pressures  of  circum- 
stance or  disposition  can  be  and  have 
been  overcome;  and  they  leave  no 
ground  for  any  person  to  plead  that 
self-control  is  beyond  his  power.  If  he 
acts  as  a  puppet  in  life  it  is  not  because 
he  was  made  so,  but  because  he  has 
been  more  willing  to  play  the  easy  part 
of  a  puppet  than  to  strive  stoutly  and 
valiantly  for  a  freedom  which  proved 
hard  to  win. 

~No  man  was  ever  born  with  an  evil 
appetite  or  passion  too  strong  for  him 
to  master.  It  may  grow  to  that  strength 
if  he  indulges  it;  he  may  be  vanquished 
and  enslaved  by  it  in  the  end,  because 
he  carelessly  gave  way  to  it  in  the 
beginning;  but  it  overcomes  him  then 

43 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

as  a  HABIT,  of  his  own  growing,  —  a 
tyrant  of  his  own  making;  and  blame 
for  the  loss  of  his  moral  freedom  lies 
on  none  but  himself.  There  is  no  other 
fact  concerning  Man  which  needs  so 
much  as  this  to  be  impressed  on  our 
Habits,  and  thoughts  while  we  are  young, 
and  while  most  of  the  habits 
of  our  lives  are  being  formed  and 
fixed.  If  we  could  only  be  made  to 
know  in  youth  what  we  have  to  learn 
in  later  years,  of  the  mighty  power,  be- 
yond all  estimate  or  description,  which 
Habits  grow  to  in  our  characters,  and 
of  the  completeness  with  which  the 
making  and  aiming  of  them  is  in  our 
own  hands  at  the  beginning,  we  could 
never  let  them  heedlessly  spring  up. 
Most  of  our  infancy  and  childhood  is 

44 


FORMATION  OF  HABIT 

spent  in  the  making  of  Habits,  good 
and  bad,  without  consciousness  in  our- 
selves of  the  fact.  Our  education  is  a 
process  of  habit-making,  and  not  much 
more.  The  action  of  nerves  and  the 
movement  of  muscles  by  which  we  bal- 
ance our  bodies  and  swing  them  for- 
ward, first  on  one  leg,  then  on  the  other, 
in  walking,  only  ceased  to  be  difficult 
when  we  had  practiced  them  enough  to 
make  them  habits  of  direction  in  the 
brain  joined  to  habits  of  motion  in  the 

limbs.     So,  too,  with  the  com-  Habit- 
making  In 

plicated  working  together  of  childhood, 
brain,  tongue,  lips,  lungs,  and  larynx, 
in  speech,  or  of  brain,  arms,  and  fin- 
gers, in  writing,  in  piano-playing,  and 
in  all  dexterous  kinds  of  work:  it  is  only 
by  a  laborious  cultivation  of  Habit  that 

45 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

those  difficult  things  are  made  easy  to 
do.  Habits  of  that  class  are  so  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  life  that  parents  are 
compelled  to  give  some  attention  to  the 
cultivation  of  them  in  the  young,  and 
the  young  cannot  very  well  fail  to  un- 
derstand the  importance  of  the  mat- 
ter to  themselves ;  but  even  these  are 
so  much  slighted  in  the  cultivation 
that  what  we  call  "  careless  habits  of 
speech/'  for  example,  are  commoner 
than  the  pure  articulation  and  pronun- 
ciation and  the  careful  choice  of  words 
that  could  just  as  easily  be  fixed  in  the 
Habit  of  our  talk. 

"  The  great  thing  in  all  education," 
says  Professor  James  in  his  "  Psycho- 
logy," "is  to  make  our  nervous  system 
our  ally  instead  of  our  enemy.  It  is  to 

46 


FORMATION   OF  HABIT 

fund  and  capitalize  our  acquisitions, 
and  live  at  ease  upon  the  interest  of 
the  fund.  For  this  we  must  make  auto- 
matic and  habitual,  as  early  as  possible, 
as  many  useful  actions  as  we  can,  and 
guard  against  the  growing  into  ways 
that  are  likely  to  be  disadvantageous 
to  us,  as  we  should  guard  against  the 
plague." 

Habits  of  carefulness  instead  of  care- 
lessness in  seeing  things,  to  see  them 
wholly  and  not  partly,  and  to  be  cor- 
rect in  our  knowledge  of  them ;  habits 
of  carefulness  in  our  thinking,  to  be 
sure  of  distinctness  in  the  ideas  out  of 
which  we  form  opinions  and  beliefs; 
habits  of  careful  attention  to  what  we 
wish  to  remember,  and  to  the  good 
order  in  memory  that  will  keep  it 

47 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 
ready  for  use :  these  may  be  acquired 
Hawt-          3ust  as  eas^y  as  the  Habits 

cultivation.       Qf   ^  heedlesg  eye?  the   looge 

thought,  and  the  haphazard  memory, 
which  are  so  much  commoner  in  the 
world.  That  is,  we  may  acquire  them 
just  as  easily  in  the  'early  years  of 
life,  when  the  ways  of  the  working 
of  our  minds  are  being  worn  into  the 
grooves  we  call  Habit;  but  when  the 
grooves  have  once  been  worn,  then  all 
changes  from  carelessness  to  careful- 
ness are  very  hard.  So  it  is,  likewise, 
with  the  movements  of  feeling  that  are 
excitable  in  our  minds, — with  anger, 
impatience,  fear,  sympathy,  desire,  van- 
ity, indolence,  for  example:  they  are 
all  equally  subject  to  the  Habits  of  ra- 
tional restraint  and  rational  cultivation, 

48 


FORMATION  OF  HABIT 

on  one  hand,  or  to  the  Habits  of  reck- 
less indulgence  and  neglect,  on  the 
other,  which  we  form  in  the  great 
Habit-making  time  of  our  youth. 
Then,  and  then  only,  can  Anger  be 
trained  to  a  Habit  of  waiting  for  Rea- 
son to  approve  it,  and  Fear  to  a  Habit 
of  leaning  on  Pride,  and  Vanity  to  a 
Habit  of  remembering  its  own  empti- 
ness. Then,  and  then  only!  That  is 
the  terrible  fact.  Few  men  TheterrlMe 
reach  old  age  without  saying  fl 
sadly,  "  Oh,  that  I  could  live  my  life 
over!"  because  time  has  shown  them 
their  misuse  of  the  opportunities  of 
their  youth  for  a  different  develop- 
ment of  themselves  and  a  different 
shaping  of  their  lives.  If,  by  some 
startling  revelation,  the  young  could 

49 


A  PRIMER   OF   RIGHT  AND   WRONG 

be  made  to  realize  the  stupendous  im- 
portance of  those  golden  opportunities 
before  wasting  them,  instead  of  waking 
to  the  realization  when  it  is  too  late, 
the  effect  on  mankind  would  be  like 
the  creation  of  a  new  race. 

EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

FRANKLIN'S  PLAN  OF  HABIT-CULTIVATION. 
Benjamin  Franklin  saw  early  in  life  that  he 
might  make  himself  what  he  wished  to  be, 
by  a  careful  cultivation  of  desirable  habits, 
and  by  a  persistent  breaking  of  those  that  did 
him  harm.  He  gave  his  best  thought  to  the 
subject,  and  framed  a  remarkable  plan  of  self- 
cultivation  and  self-control,  which  he  carried 
out  with  great  success.  It  is  described  very 
fully  in  his  autobiography,  and  must  have 
prompted  many  young  people  since  to  attempt 
the  same  training  of  habit  in  themselves.  He 
50 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

began,  he  tells  us,  by  endeavoring  "  to  live 
without  committing  any  fault,"  but  soon  found 
that  he  had  undertaken  more  than  he  could 
do.  "  While  my  care  was  employed  in  guard- 
ing against  one  fault,"  he  writes,  "  I  was  often 
surprised  by  another;  habit  took  the  advan- 
tage of  inattention ;  inclination  was  sometimes 
too  strong  for  reason.  I  concluded,  at  length, 
.  .  .  that  the  contrary  habits  must  be  broken, 
and  good  ones  acquired  and  established,  be- 
fore we  can  have  any  dependence  on  a  steady, 
uniform  rectitude  of  conduct."  For  this  pur- 
pose he  contrived  his  notable  method,  first 
making  a  careful  list  of  the  moral  virtues, 
thirteen  in  number,  which  seemed  to  call  for 
especial  cultivation.  "My  intention,"  said 
Franklin,  "  being  to  acquire  the  habitude  of 
all  these  virtues,  I  judged  it  would  be  well  not 
to  distract  my  attention  by  attempting  the 
whole  at  once,  but  to  fix  it  on  one  of  them  at 
a  time  ;  and,  when  I  should  be  master  of  that, 
51 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

then  to  proceed  to  another,  and  so  on,  till  I 
should  have  gone  through  the  thirteen ;  and, 
as  the  previous  acquisition  of  some  might 
facilitate  the  acquisition  of  certain  others,  I 
arranged  them  with  that  view.  .  .  .  Temper- 
ance first,  as  it  tends  to  procure  that  coolness 
and  clearness  of  head  which  is  so  necessary 
where  constant  vigilance  was  to  be  kept  up, 
and  guard  maintained  against  the  unremitting 
attraction  of  ancient  habits,  and  the  force  of 
perpetual  temptations.  This  being  acquired 
and  established,  Silence  would  be  more  easy ; 
and  my  desire  being  to  gain  knowledge  at  the 
same  time  that  I  improved  in  virtue,  and  con- 
sidering that  in  conversation  it  was  obtained 
rather  by  the  use  of  the  ears  than  of  the 
tongue,  and  therefore  wishing  to  break  a 
habit  I  was  getting  into  of  prattling,  punning, 
and  joking,  which  only  made  me  acceptable  to 
trifling  company,  I  gave  Silence  the  second 
place.  This  and  the  next,  Order,  I  expected 
52 


EXAMPLES  AND   OPINIONS 

would  allow  me  more  time  for  attending  to 
my  project  and  my  studies.  Resolution,  once 
become  habitual,  would  keep  me  firm  in  my 
endeavors  to  obtain  all  the  subsequent  vir- 
tues ;  Frugality  and  Industry,  freeing  me  from 
my  remaining  debt,  and  producing  affluence 
and  independence,  would  make  more  easy  the 
practice  of  Sincerity  and  Justice,  etc.,  etc. 
Conceiving  then  that,  agreeably  to  the  advice 
of  Pythagoras  in  his  Golden  Verses,  daily 
examination  would  be  necessary,  I  contrived 
the  following  method  for  conducting  that  ex- 
amination. I  made  a  little  book,  in  which  I 
allotted  a  page  for  each  of  the  virtues.  I  ruled 
each  page  with  red  ink,  so  as  to  have  seven 
columns,  one  for  each  day  of  the  week,  mark- 
ing each  column  with  a  letter  for  the  day.  I 
crossed  these  columns  with  thirteen  red  lines, 
marking  the  beginning  of  each  line  with  the 
first  letter  of  one  of  the  virtues,  on  which  line, 
and  in  its  proper  column,  I  might  mark,  by  a 
53 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

little  black  spot,  every  fault  I  found  upon  ex- 
amination to  have  been  committed  respecting 
that  virtue  upon  that  day.  ...  I  determined 
to  give  a  week's  strict  attention  to  each  of  the 
virtues  successively.  .  .  .  Proceeding  thus  to 
the  last,  I  could  go  through  a  course  complete 
in  thirteen  weeks,  and  four  courses  in  a  year. 
And  like  him  who,  having  a  garden  to  weed, 
does  not  attempt  to  eradicate  all  the  bad 
herbs  at  once,  which  would  exceed  his  reach 
and  his  strength,  but  works  on  one  of  the  beds 
at  a  time,  ...  so  I  should  have,  I  hoped,  the 
encouraging  pleasure  of  seeing  on  my  pages 
the  progress  I  made  in  virtue,  by  clearing  suc- 
cessively my  lines  of  their  spots.  ...  I  en- 
tered upon  the  execution  of  this  plan  for  self- 
examination,  and  continued  it  with  occasional 
intermissions  for  some  time.  I  was  surprised 
to  find  myself  so  much  fuller  of  faults  than  I 
had  imagined  ;  but  I  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  them  diminish.  .  .  .  After  a  while  I 
54 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

went  through  one  course  only  in  a  year,  and 
afterward  only  one  in  several  years,  till  at 
length  I  omitted  them  entirely,  being  em- 
ployed in  voyages  and  business  abroad,  with  a 
multiplicity  of  affairs  that  interfered ;  but  I 
always  carried  my  little  book  with  me.  .  .  .  It 
may  be  well  my  posterity  should  be  informed 
that  to  this  little  artifice,  with  the  blessing  of 
God,  their  ancestor  owed  the  constant  felicity 
of  his  life,  down 'to  his  seventy -ninth  year,  in 
which  this  is  written." 

THE  SELF-MASTERY  OF  SOCRATES.  Xeno- 
phon,  who  wrote  the  Memoirs  of  Socrates, 
the  wisest  and  noblest  of  the  Greeks,  says 
of  him :  "  He  was  so  frugal  that  I  doubt 
whether  there  is  any  man  whose  labor  would 
not  earn  for  him  as  much  as  satisfied  Soc- 
rates. He  took  only  such  food  as  he  could 
consume  with  a  relish,  and  sat  down  to  table 
prepared  to  make  his  appetite  for  his  meal  the 
sauce  to  season  it  withal.  All  kinds  of  drink 
55 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

were  agreeable  to  him,  because  he  never  drank 
unless  he  was  thirsty."  In  another  place 
Xenophon  says :  "  He  drew  no  distinction  be- 
tween wisdom  and  temperance,  for  he  consid- 
ered a  man  who  knew  what  was  honorable 
and  good,  and  how  to  practice  it,  and  who, 
recognizing  what  was  base,  had  the  power  to 
withstand  it,  to  be  both  wise  and  temperate. 
Being  asked  whether  he  esteemed  those  who, 
knowing  what  was  their  duty,  acted  in  opposi- 
tion to  that  knowledge,  as  wise,  he  said :  *  I 
regard  such  people  as  foolish  and  intemperate 
characters;  for  I  suppose  that  every  one,  in 
every  case  in  which  it  is  possible  for  him  to 
do  so,  chooses  that  which  he  thinks  will  be 
best  for  him.'  .  .  .  He  asserted  that  the  oppo- 
site of  wisdom  was  insanity,  but  he  did  not 
reckon  ignorance  as  insanity."  Socrates  is 
quoted  further  by  Xenophon  as  saying :  "  In 
what  respect  does  an  intemperate  man  differ 
from  the  most  ignorant  brute?  For  if  any 
56 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

one,  instead  of  regarding  his  highest  interests, 
seeks  invariably  to  avail  himself  of  any  plea- 
sure that  comes  within  his  reach,  what  distinc- 
tion is  there  between  his  conduct  and  that  of 
the  most  unreasoning  beasts  ?  " 

ONE  OF  THE  SAYINGS  OP  MARCUS  AUEE- 
LIUS.  In  the  little  book  of  "  Thoughts  "  or 
"Meditations,"  written  by  the  Roman  Emperor, 
Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  one  of  the  purest 
and  noblest  men  who  ever  lived,  we  find  this  : 
"  If  thou  findest  in  human  life  anything  better 
than  justice,  truth,  temperance,  fortitude,  and, 
in  a  word,  anything  better  than  thy  own 
mind's  self-satisfaction  in  the  things  which  it 
enables  thee  to  do  according  to  right  reason, 
and  in  the  condition  that  is  assigned  to  thee 
without  thy  own  choice ;  if,  I  say,  thou  seest 
anything  better  than  this,  turn  to  it  with  all 
thy  soul,  and  enjoy  that  which  thou  hast  found 
to  be  best.  But  if  nothing  appears  to  be  bet- 
ter than  the  Deity  which  is  planted  in  thee, 
57 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

which  has  subjected  to  itself  all  thy  appetites, 
and,  as  Socrates  said,  has  detached  itself  from 
the  persuasions  of  sense,  and  has  submitted 
itself  to  the  gods,  and  cares  for  mankind ;  if 
thou  findest  everything  else  smaller  and  of  less 
value  than  this,  give  place  to  nothing  else." 

How  FARADAY  ACQUIRED  SWEETNESS  AND 
GENTLENESS.  Professor  Tyndall,  in  his  little 
book  on  "  Faraday  as  a  Discoverer,"  wrote : 
"  We  have  heard  much  of  Faraday's  gentleness 
and  sweetness  and  tenderness.  It  is  all  true, 
but  it  is  very  incomplete.  .  .  .  Underneath  his 
sweetness  and  gentleness  was  the  heat  of  a  vol- 
cano. He  was  a  man  of  excitable  and  fiery  na- 
ture ;  but  through  high  self -discipline  he  had 
converted  the  fire  into  a  central  glow  and  mo- 
tive power  of  life,  instead  of  permitting  it  to 
waste  itself  in  useless  passion.  'He  that  is 
slow  to  anger,'  saith  the  sage,  *  is  greater  than 
the  mighty,  and  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  than 
he  that  taketh  a  city.'  Faraday  was  not  slow 
58 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

to  anger,  but  he  completely  ruled  his  own 
spirit,  and  thus,  though  he  took  no  cities,  he 
captivated  all  hearts." 

THE  POWER  OF  SELF-CONTROL  A  DEVEL- 
OPMENT. In  a  child  of  six  months  "  no  desire 
or  tendency  is  stopped  by  a  mental  act.  At  a 
year  old,  the  rudiments  of  the  great  faculty  of 
self-control  are  clearly  apparent  in  most  chil- 
dren. They  will  resist  the  desire  to  seize  the 
gas-flame,  they  will  not  upset  the  milk-jug,  they 
will  obey  orders  to  sit  still  when  they  want  to 
run  about,  all  through  a  higher  mental  inhibi- 
tion. But  the  power  of  control  is  just  as  grad- 
ual a  development  as  the  motions  of  the  hands." 
—  T.  S.  CLOTJSTON,  Lectures  on  Mental  Dis- 
eases (quoted  by  Professor  William  James  in 
his  Principles  of  Psychology). 

SPINNING  OUR  OWN  FATES.  "Keep  the 
faculty  of  effort  alive  in  you  by  a  little  gratu- 
itous exercise  every  day.  That  is,  be  system- 
atically ascetic  or  heroic  in  little  unnecessary 
59 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

points ;  do  every  day  or  two  something  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  you  would  rather  not  do 
it,  so  that  when  the  hour  of  dire  need  draws 
nigh,  it  may  find  you  not  unnerved  and  un- 
trained to  stand  the  test.  Asceticism  of  this 
sort  is  like  the  insurance  which  a  man  pays  on 
his  house  and  goods.  The  tax  does  him  no 
good  at  the  time,  and  possibly  may  never  bring 
him  a  return.  But  if  the  fire  does  come,  his 
having  paid  it  will  be  his  salvation  from  ruin. 
So  with  the  man  who  has  daily  inured  him- 
self to  habits  of  concentrated  attention,  en- 
ergetic volition,  and  self-denial  in  unnecessary 
things.  He  will  stand  like  a  tower  when 
everything  rocks  around  him,  and  when  his 
softer  fellow  mortals  are  winnowed  like  chaff 
in  the  blast.  .  .  .  Could  the  young  but  real- 
ize how  soon  they  will  become  mere  walking 
bundles  of  habits,  they  would  give  more  heed 
to  their  conduct  while  in  the  plastic  state. 
We  are  spinning  our  own  fates,  good  or  evil, 
60 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

and  never  to  be  undone.  Every  smallest  stroke 
of  virtue  or  vice  leaves  its  never  so  little  scar. 
The  drunken  Rip  Van  Winkle,  in  Jefferson's 
play,  excuses  himself  for  every  fresh  derelic- 
tion by  saying,  *  I  won't  count  this  time.' 
Well,  he  may  not  count  it,  and  a  kind  Heaven 
may  not  count  it ;  but  it  is  being  counted  none 
the  less.  Down  among  his  nerve-cells  and  fibres 
the  molecules  are  counting  it,  registering  and 
storing  it  up  to  be  used  against  him  when  the 
next  temptation  comes.  Nothing  we  ever  do 
is,  in  strict  scientific  literalness,  wiped  out. 
Of  course  this  has  its  good  side  as  well  as  its 
bad  one.  As  we  become  permanent  drunkards 
by  so  many  separate  drinks,  so  we  become 
saints  in  the  moral,  and  experts  in  the  practi- 
cal and  scientific  spheres,  by  so  many  separate 
acts  and  hours  of  work."  —  WILLIAM  JAMES, 
Psychology  (Abridgment  of  Principles  of 
Psychology),  p.  149. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  WILL.    "  *  To  will ' 
61 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

(in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word)  is  ... 
the  result  of  a  development ;  it  is  something 
which  no  one  can  do  at  the  beginning  of 
mental  life,  but  which  all  men  learn  to  do 
in  the  course  of  its  unfolding.  To  exercise 
*  free  will '  —  in  any  conceivable  meaning  of 
this  term  —  is  not  a  birthright;  it  is  rather 
an  achievement  which  different  individuals 
make  in  greatly  differing  degrees."  —  Gr.  T. 
LADD,  Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explan- 
atory, ch.  xxvi. 


CONFUSED    NOTIONS    OF    RIGHT    AND 
WRONG,  AND  THEIR  PRINCIPAL  CAUSES 


is  easier  in  most  circum- 
stances than  to  see  what  will  be  Right 
and  what  Wrong,  in  any  choice  we 
have  to  make  between  two  courses  of 
action;  and  yet  most  of  the  wrong- 
doing of  the  world  is  probably  done 
with  no  clear  understanding  that  it  is 
"Wrong.  Not  many  people  really  mean 
to  do  Wrong.  Not  many,  that  is,  know 
clearly  that  they  are  turning  away  from 
the  Line  of  Right  and  going  wrongly 
when  they  take  that  course.  On  the 
other  hand,  not  many,  perhaps,  really 
try  to  know  what  is  Right,  in  order 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

that  they  may  do  it  with  certainty  and 
make  no  mistake.  The  greater  num- 
ber seem  to  give  little  thought  to  the 
matter,  and  their  notions  of  Right  are 
so  vague  as  to  be  easily  confused  and 
misled.  They  prefer  Right  to  Wrong, 
Thoughtless-  and  a  general  intention  to  be 

ness  on  the 

subject.  guided  by  it  is  in  their  minds ; 
but  the  intention  is  not  earnest  enough 
to  make  them  careful  and  exact.  They 
run  no  lines  of  moral  survey  for  them- 
selves, to  lay  out  their  courses  in  life, 
but  carelessly  follow  beaten  paths. 
They  are  satisfied,  in  other  words,  to 
be  "  as  nearly  Right  as  other  people/' 
—  the  "  other  people  "  being  mostly  as 
careless  on  the  subject  as  themselves. 
Thus  imperfect  notions  or  standards 
of  Right  and  Wrong  get  thoughtlessly 

64 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

accepted,  and  become  established  in 
common  practice  so  widely  that  more 
wrong-doing  appears  to  result  from 
them  than  from  all  the  willful  wick- 
edness of  the  world. 

For  this  reason,  it  seems  to  be  more 
necessary  to  persuade  people  to  give 
careful  consideration  to  questions  of 
Right  and  Wrong,  and  to  frame  dis- 
tinct rules  in  their  own  minds  for  the 
guidance  of  their  conduct,  than  it  is  to 
persuade  them  to  prefer  the  Right.  We 
have  seen  already  how  simple  a  subject 
it  is,  and  how  small  a  degree  of  intelli- 
gence is  required  for  grasping  every 
idea  with  which  it  has  to  do.  The  false 
notions  that  confuse  it  are  just  as  plain, 
too,  in  their  falsity,  when  examined,  as 
the  true  notions  are  plainly  true.  Many 

65 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 
that  were  most  misleading  in  former 
times  have  been  practically  cleared  from 
men's  minds  by  the  mere  changing  of 
their  habits  of  view,  as  their  dealings 
with  each  other  have  widened  out.  In 
the  early  days  of  human  society  a  man 
learned  first  to  see  that  others  in  his 
own  tribe  were  beings  like  himself,  who 
could  claim  from  him  the  same  treat- 
ment which  he  claimed  from  them. 
These  were  his  fellow  men;  all  others 
seemed  different  to  him.  Men  not  of 
his  own  tribe  were  strangers?  and  to  be 
TriDai  a  stranger  was  quite  certainly 
to  be  an  enemy.  Hence, 
most,  if  not  all,  of  his  first  notions  of 
Right  and  Wrong  in  dealing  with  other 
people  extended  only  to  the  people  of 
his  own  tribe.  He  could  see  it  to  be 

66 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

Wrong  to  take  their  lives  or  their  pro- 
perty, or  to  harm  them  otherwise,  long 
before  he  could  think  it  Wrong  to  kill 
or  rob  the  strange  people  of  other  tribes. 
In  time,  this  tribal  notion  of  Right  and 
Wrong  got  slowly  enlarged  in  various 
directions  and  in  various  ways,  by  the 
union  of  kindred  tribes  into  nations,  or 
by  the  spreading  of  common  religions, 
which  multiplied  the  number  of  peo- 
ple whom  each  man  could  feel  human 
fellowship  with,  and  so  recognize  as 
having  moral  claims  on  himself. 

That  process  has  been  going  on 
through  centuries,  until  now  it  can  be 
said  that  nearly  all  the  hedges  which 
used  to  grow  high  between  people  of 
different  nations,  different  races,  differ- 
ent religions,  to  keep  them  from  f eel- 

67 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

ing  that  they  were  fellow  men,  of  like 
nature  and  having  like  claims  on  each 
other,  are  going  to  decay.  The  one 
which  seems  hardest  to  destroy  is  the 
hedge  of  color,  between  white  men  and 
black,  or  yellow,  or  brown.  There  was 
views  of  a  time  when  slavery  was  one 

slavery,  for 

example.  of  the  commonest  iniquities 
of  the  world.  Any  mode  of  capture, 
anywhere,  which  supplied  the  slave 
markets  with  desirable  men,  women, 
and  children,  was  winked  at  by  the 
moral  feeling  of  that  age.  Then  there 
came  a  feeling,  among  the  peoples 
most  advanced  in  civilization,  that  only 
savages  or  captives  taken  in  war  could 
rightly  be  made  slaves.  In  the  next 
growth  of  moral  enlightenment  on  the 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

subject,  no  enslaving  of  a  white  man 
was  approved  by  the  white  races,  but 
the  black  man  might  still  be  caught 
and  sold  to  a  whit%  master  with  no 
sense  of  Wrong  being  done.  Finally, 
at  the  present  time,  all  slavery  of  hu- 
man beings,  black  or  white,  is  con- 
demned by  the  general  opinion  of 
mankind.  The  most  important  of  the 
workings  of  what  we  call  civilization, 

—  of  Christian  civilization  especially, 

—  is  seen  in  this.     It  has  been  slowly 
bringing  the  different  peoples  of  the 
earth  to   a  knowledge  of   each  other 
which  compels  them  to  see  that  every 
man  is  the  fellow  of  every  other,  alike 
in  nature,  alike  in  moral  claims,  and 
that  when  the  Golden  Rule  of  Eight 


69 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

i4\k^ 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

between  any  two  has  been  found,  it 
must  be  the  Rule  of  Eight  for  every 
two  and  for  all. 

The  most  serious  cause  of  mistake 
and  confusion  in  the  moral  perceptions 
of  mankind  is  being  thus  slowly  re- 
moved; but  another,  hardly  less  mis- 
chievous, remains  in  full  force.  This 
latter  is  found  in  the  view  which  many 
people  take  of  the  Laws  by  which  they 
are  humanly  governed;  the  Laws,  that 
is,  of  their  nation  or  state.  They  seem 
to  think  that  these  are  sufficient  rules 
of  conduct  for  the  right  guidance  of 
the  subjects  of  the  state  in  their  deal- 
ing with  one  another.  They  accept 
Mischievous  them  as  standards  of  sound 

notions  o! 

law.  morality,  and  feel,  no  doubt, 

that  they  are  entirely  righteous  if  they 

70 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

live  up  to  the  requirements  of  the 
Law  which  their  legislatures  and  courts 
have  set  forth.  No  idea  could  be  more 
destructive  of  a  true  understanding 
of  Right  and  Wrong.  These  Laws 
which  our  courts  enforce,  not  only  are 
not  meant  to  be  moral  rules,  but  they 
could  not,  by  any  possibility,  have  that 
character  or  quality  given  to  them. 
Nobody  can  frame  directions  that  will 
tell  us,  in  every  case  of  our  dealing 
with  another,  what  conduct  is  called 
for  by  the  Golden  Rule.  As  a  little 
thought  will  show  us,  each  case  raises 
a  question  which  the  person  concerned 
must  settle  for  himself.  The  man  A, 
in  our  diagram  on  page  9,  must  learn 
from  his  own  consciousness  the  Line 
of  Right  Conduct  which  he  claims 
71 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

from  B,  in  order  to  give  a  true  moral 
aim  in  his  own  conduct  towards  B. 
In  no  other  way  can  his  action  be 
rightly  fitted  to  its  circumstances;  in 
no  other  way  can  it  be  a  moral  act  of 
his  own.  If  his  line  of  conduct  is  sim- 
ply that  which  the  Law  lays  down,  and 
which  its  courts  can  compel  him  to  fol- 
low, it  is  not  his  own,  and  therefore,  as 
we  have  seen,  there  can  be  little  or  no 
morality  in  his  obedience  to  it,  no  mat- 
ter how  Right  it  may  be. 

Since  it  is  plainly  true  that  not  many 
of  these  Laws  of  human  making  would 
be  needed  if  every  man  did  to  others 
as  he  would  have  them  do  to  him,  it 
follows  that  most  of  them  are  made 
solely  for  the  coercion  of  people  who 
will  not  learn  for  themselves  what  is 

72 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

Eight,  and  do  it  of  their  own  accord. 
It  is  not  the  object  of  the  Law  to  in- 
struct or  guide  those  who  wish  to  act 
rightly,  that  being  impossible,  as  was 
said  before.  The  best  that  The  object 

of  human 

legislatures  and  courts  can  do  law- 
is»  to  roughly  mark  lines  that  shall  be 
somewhat  nearly  Lines  of  Right,  for 
various  classes  of  dealings  between 
people  one  or  both  of  whom  need  to 
be  forced  to  do  what  is  Eight.  There- 
fore one  who  takes  guidance  from  the 
Law  is  not  morally  guided  at  all;  he  is 
only  kept  from  going  Wrong  beyond 
a  certain  line. 

For  example,  there  are  hundreds  of 
circumstances  in  which  a  man  may 
owe  a  debt  of  some  description  that  is 
not  exactly  set  forth  in  any  Law,  and 

73 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

which  he  cannot  be  compelled  to  pay. 
There  are  just  as  many  circumstances, 
too,  in  which  he  may  get  possession  of 
property  that  does  not  justly  belong  to 
him,  but  which  there  is  a  failure  of 
Law  to  compel  him  to  restore.  If  he 
looks  into  his  own  mind  for  the  Rule 
of  Right  to  direct  his  conduct  in  such 
a  case,  and  imagines  himself  changed 
in  place  with  the  other  party  con- 
cerned, he  is  sure  to  feel  and  know 
what  his  own  claim  of  Right  would 
be,  and  to  understand  that  the  due  of 
Right  from  him  is  settled  by  that. 
But  if,  with  moral  carelessness,  he  hag 
Legal  honesty  fallen  into  the  practice  oi 

not  moral 

honesty.  leaving  questions  of  Righl 
and  "Wrong  to  be  settled  for  him  by 
lawyers  and  courts,  instead  of  form- 

74 


CONFUSED  NOTIONS 

ing  and  cultivating  the  habit  of  appeal 
to  the  Golden  Rule,  applied  by  his 
own  moral  sense,  he  commits  a  great 
"Wrong,  half  understanding,  perhaps, 
that  it  is  so,  but  believing,  or  trying 
to  believe,  that  the  Law  is  responsible 
for  it,  and  not  himself.  A  large  part 
of  the  wrong-doing  of  the  world  comes 
from  this  deplorable  source. 

EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

SIB  WALTER  SCOTT'S  EXAMPLE  IN  THE 
PAYMENT  OF  A  DEBT  FAR  BEYOND  THE 
REQUIREMENTS  OF  LAW.  The  publishing 
house  of  Ballantyne  &  Co.,  of  Edinburgh, 
was  forced  to  stop  business  in  1826,  owing 
an  immensely  large  debt.  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
who  had  invested  money  in  the  business  and 
become  a  partner,  was  legally  liable  for  this 
debt  to  the  extent  of  all  the  property  which 
75 


A  PRIMER  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

he  then  possessed,  and  no  more.  "But," 
says  his  son-in-law  and  biographer,  Mr.  Lock- 
hart,  "  he  regarded  the  embarrassment  of  his 
commercial  firm,  on  the  whole,  with  the  feel- 
ings not  of  a  merchant  but  of  a  gentleman. 
He  thought  that  by  devoting  the  rest  of  his 
life  to  the  service  of  his  creditors  he  could,  in 
the  upshot,  pay  the  last  farthing  he  owed 
them.  .  .  .  Nor  had  Sir  Walter  calculated 
wrongly.  He  paid  the  penalty  of  health  and 
life,  but  he  saved  his  honor  and  his  self- 
respect."  Between  January,  1826,  and  Jan- 
uary, 1828,  by  prodigious  labors  in  writing 
and  by  selling  the  copyright  in  his  books, 
he  paid  off  nearly  £40,000  (1200,000)  of 
the  great  debt,  and  wrote  in  his  diary :  "  I 
might  have  employed  the  money  I  have  made 
since  the  insolvency  ...  in  compounding  my 
debts.  But  I  could  not  have  slept  sound,  as  I 
now  can,  under  the  comfortable  impression  of 
receiving  the  thanks  of  my  creditors,  and  the 
76 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

conscious  feeling  of  discharging  my  duty  as  a 
man  of  honor  and  honesty.  I  see  before  me  a 
long,  tedious,  and  dark  path,  but  it  leads  to 
stainless  reputation.  If  I  die  in  the  harrows, 
as  is  very  likely,  I  shall  die  with  honor ;  if  I 
achieve  my  task,  I  shall  have  the  thanks  of 
all  concerned,  and  the  approbation  of  my  own 
conscience."  At  his  death,  in  1832  (broken 
down  by  incessant  labor),  no  less  than  £54,000 
($270,000)  of  the  debt  remained  still  to  be 
paid;  but  moneys  received  on  the  insurance 
of  his  life,  and  advances  made  by  publishers 
on  future  sales  of  his  writings,  enabled  his 
executors  to  clear  it  entirely  away. 

THE  SIMILAR  EXAMPLE  SET  BY  GEORGE 
W.  CURTIS.  George  William  Curtis,  one  of 
the  most  delightful  of  American  writers  and 
one  of  the  noblest  of  men,  became  in  middle 
life  a  partner  with  others  in  the  publication  of 
"  Putnam's  Monthly  Magazine,"  which  failed. 
Mr.  Curtis  felt  called  upon,  by  his  own -sense  of 
77 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

right,  to  make  good  the  loss  to  creditors,  and 
accordingly  he  assumed  a  large  indebtedness, 
"  for  which,"  says  his  biographer,  Mr.  Edward 
Gary,  "  he  was  not  legally  bound ; "  and  for 
nearly  twenty  years  he  labored  incessantly  to 
pay  it,  devoting  to  that  purpose  the  money 
which  he  earned  by  lecturing,  from  city  to 
city,  throughout  the  United  States.  The  cost 
to  him  of  this  long  and  patient  undertaking 
was  not  only  heavy  labor,  "  but  much  hard- 
ship and  exposure,  much  sacrifice  of  the  joys 
of  a  home  peculiarly  dear,  and  the  almost 
complete  abandonment  of  scholarly  pursuits 
to  which  he  had  looked  with  longing."  This 
"  was  done  in  the  quiet  and  unquestioning 
obedience  to  the  law  of  simple,  manly  fidelity 
that  was  a  law  of  his  nature,  and  as  integral 
a  part  of  it  as  his  kindness  of  heart  and  gen- 
tleness of  manners." 

A    MERCHANT'S   EXPERIENCE.    It   is   re- 
lated of  Mr.  Samuel  Appleton,  formerly  an 
78 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

eminent  merchant  of  Boston,  that  he  was 
asked  on  one  occasion  his  opinion  of  the 
general  honesty  of  mankind.  "Very  favor- 
able," he  replied;  "very  generally,  I  think 
they  mean  to  be  honest.  I  have  never  in  my 
life  met  with  more  than  three  or  four  cases 
in  which  I  thought  a  man  intended  to  be  dis- 
honest with  me." 

WHAT  RUSKIN  THOUGHT  OF  EVERYBODY'S 
ABILITY  TO  KNOW  ALWAYS  WHAT  is  RIGHT. 
The  following  is  from  a  dialogue  between  a 
teacher  and  his  pupils  on  the  subject  of  our 
ability  to  know  what  is  Right  and  what  is 
Wrong.  It  is  taken  from  Mr.  John  Ruskin's 
little  book  entitled  "  The  Ethics  of  the  Dust," 
in  which  many  moral  lessons  suggested  by  the 
structure  and  formation  of  crystals  are  finely 
and  beautifully  discussed. 

Mary.  Must  not  one  repent  when  one  does 
wrong,  and  hesitate  when  one  can't  see  one's 
way? 

79 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

L.  You  have  no  business  at  all  to  do 
wrong ;  nor  to  get  into  any  way  that  you  can- 
not see.  Your  intelligence  should  always  be 
far  in  advance  of  your  act.  Whenever  you 
do  not  know  what  you  are  about  you  are  sure 
to  be  doing  wrong. 

Kathleen.  Oh,  dear,  but  I  never  know 
what  I  am  about ! 

L.  Very  true,  Katie,  but  it  is  a  great  deal 
to  know,  if  you  know  that.  And  you  find  that 
you  have  done  wrong  afterwards ;  and  perhaps 
some  day  you  may  begin  to  know,  or  at  least 
think,  what  you  are  about. 

Isabel.  But  surely  people  can't  do  very 
wrong  if  they  don't  know,  can  they  ?  I  mean, 
they  can't  be  very  naughty.  They  can  be 
wrong,  like  Kathleen  or  me,  when  we  make 
mistakes  ;  but  not  wrong  in  the  dreadful  way. 
I  can't  express  what  I  mean;  but  there  are 
two  sorts  of  wrong,  are  there  not  ? 

L.  Yes,  Isabel ;  but  you  will  find  that  the 
80 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

great  difference  is  between  kind  and  unkind 
wrongs,  not  between  meant  and  unmeant 
wrong.  Very  few  people  really  mean  to  do 
wrong,  —  in  a  deep  sense,  none.  They  only 
don't  know  what  they  are  about.  .  .  . 

May.  But  if  people  do  as  well  as  they  can 
see  how,  surely  that  is  the  Eight  for  them, 
is  n't  it? 

L.  No,  May,  not  a  bit  of  it;  Eight  is 
Eight,  and  Wrong  is  Wrong.  It  is  only  the 
fool  who  does  Wrong,  and  says  he  "  did  it  for 
the  best."  And  if  there 's  one  sort  of  person 
in  the  world  that  the  Bible  speaks  harder  of 
than  another,  it  is  fools.  .  .  . 

May.  But  surely  nobody  can  always  know 
what  is  Eight  ? 

L.  Yes,  you  always  can,  for  to-day ;  and 
if  you  do  what  you  see  of  it  to-day,  you  will 
see  more  of  it,  and  more  clearly,  to-morrow. 


81 


VI 

INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

IN  many  of  the  words  that  we  use  to 
express  moral  ideas  we  find  something 
to  think  about  if  we  trace  them  back 
to  the  older  uses  they  had,  and  see 
what  their  moral  meaning  was  when  it 
shaped  itself  first  in  men's  minds.  The 
word  INTEGRITY,  for  example,  stands  for 
a  great  deal  in  our  language  at  the 
present  day.  It  brings  up  in  us  a 
large,  general,  rather  vague  idea  of 
moral  character,  which  is  apt  to  flit 
through  our  thoughts  without  ever  be- 
coming quite  distinct.  But  in  the  be- 
ginning it  carried  as  simple,  as  clear, 
and  as  well  defined  a  notion  as  ever 

82 


INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

took  form  in  the  thinking  of  mankind. 
It  was  borrowed  for  our  English  speech 
from  the  Latin,  where  it  came  from  the 
word    integer,   meaning    un-  ^^tii* 
touched,  unbroken,  whole.    In  wlloleness- 
that  sense   it  was  taken  to  represent 
anything  that   can   be  thought  of   as 
unimpaired   and  complete  in  the  per- 
fection of  itself.     We  can  use  it  pro- 
perly in  no  other  sense. 

But  the  idea  of  wholeness  is  identical 
with  the  idea  of  health.  The  two 
words  whole  and  health  show  two 
sides  of  the  same  meaning,  having 
''grown  into  use  from  the  same  root, 
far  back  in  the  early  word-making  of 
our  speech.  The  first  thought  in  them 
was  the  thought  of  a  condition  in 
something  (no  matter  what)  which  can 

83 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

be  changed  to  another  less  perfect 
state.  But  that  is  a  change  which 
one  cannot  help  feeling  is  in  an  un- 
natural direction,  being  made  by  in- 
jury, or  by  taking  some  part  of  the 

Wholeness  is    thinS    aWaJ'        The     state     °f 

wholeness  or  health  in  any- 
thing seemed,  therefore,  to  be  its  nat- 
ural state,  —  the  condition  in  which  it 
ought  to  be.  If  our  English  language 
had  all  grown  up  from  the  old  Ger- 
manic stock  that  gave  us  these  words 
whole  and  health,  we  should  now  be 
using  one  or  the  other  of  them,  no 
doubt,  to  express  what  we  mean  when 
we  speak  of  a  "  man  of  Integrity."  As 
it  is,  they  help  to  show  us  what  mean- 
ing the  word  was  intended  to  bear  in 
our  minds,  by  those  forefathers  of  ours 

84 


INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

who  took  the  Latin  word  for  whole- 
ness, instead  of  their  own,  for  use  in 
a  moral  sense.  The  man  of  Integrity 
is  a  man  who  morally  is  in  the  state 
of  health,  —  in  the  natural  state  of 
his  being,  —  in  the  condition  Themanol 
which  ought  to  be.  The  de-  lntegrlty< 
sire  which  actuates  his  conduct  is  the 
desire  to  know  and  to  do  what  is 
Eight,  to  his  fellows  and  himself.  He 
exercises  and  cultivates  his  perception 
of  Eight,  and  his  will  to  choose  it,  in 
all  the  aims  and  actions  of  his  life. 
He  is  the  man  of  Integrity  because  he 
tries  to  perfect  his  moral  being,  mak- 
ing the  most  and  best  of  the  nature 
with  which  he  is  endowed. 

We  describe  such  a  man  in  another 
way  when  we  say  that  he  has  "  a  high 

85 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

sense  of  honor/'  or  that  he  is  "  honor- 
able/' or  that  he  is  an  "  honest  man." 
We  do  so,  that  is,  if  we  use  the  words 
HONOR  and  HONEST  with  a  due  sense  of 
what  they  mean.  The  true  idea  ex- 
pressed in  the  word  Honor  is  that  of 
an  exalted  tribute  of  respect  and  rever- 
ence, paid  to  some  object  of  surpass- 
ing nobility  and  worth.  Therefore,  a 
truly  "  high  sense  of  Honor "  in  a 
man's  mind  is  a  high  feeling  of  self- 
respect.  It  is  the  feeling  of  one  who  so 
esteems  himself  that  his  whole  nature 
The  "sense  shrinks  from  wrong-doing  as 

of  honor  "is 

seii-respect.  a  cleanly  hand  shrinks  from 
the  touch  of  filth.  He  honors  himself 
too  much  to  be  lowered  willingly  in 
his  own  consciousness  by  any  act  that 
seems  base  —  mean  —  Wrong.  The 

86 


INTEGRITY  —  HONOR — HONESTY 

same  high  sense  of  what  is  due  to  his 
own  dignity  of  being  will  justly  forbid 
him  to  submit  willingly  to  wrong-do- 
ing from  others;  but  that  can  never 
be  so  urgent  in  a  truly  honorable  mind 
as  the  repulsion  which  keeps  it  from 
any  base  prompting  in  itself.  There 
is  nothing  that  even  resembles  a  real 
"  sense  of  Honor  "  in  the  shallow  self- 
conceit  which  hurries  men  to  retaliate 
and  "  avenge  "  some  insult  or  slight. 
This  is  coming  to  be  seen  much  more 
generally  than  it  used  to  be,  and  the 
barbaric  state  of  mind  that  formerly, 
in  all  countries,  made  dueling  a  so- 
called  "  affair  of  honor,"  prevails  in 
few  regions  now.  More  and  more,  as 
people  are  brought  to  think  carefully 
of  such  matters,  it  will  be  seen  that  a 
87 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

man's  Honor  is  harmed  very  slightly 
by  any  offense  he  can  receive  from 
another,  compared  with  the  incurable 
wounding  and  staining  that  it  suffers 
from  the  least  baseness  in  his  own 
acts. 

Honest  and  Honesty  are  very  com- 
mon words  in  our  every-day  talk;  but 
we  do  not  always  use  them  with  the 
full  meaning  they  ought  to  have. 
When  we  say  that  a  man  is  Honest 
we  should  expect  it  to  be  understood 
that  we  believe  him  to  be  a  man  who 
is  careful  of  his  Honor,  in  all  that 
he  does,  says,  and  thinks.  But  we 
often  do  call  men  Honest  who  are 
The  honest  onty  careful  to  do  nothing 
contrary  to  Law,  or  to  the 
common  practice  or  opinion  of  the 

88 


INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

community  in  which  they  live.  That 
gives  a  most  unworthy  meaning  to 
the  word,  and  disfigures  the  great  idea 
of  self -reverence  and  respect  which  it 
ought  to  carry  to  our  minds,  and  which 
we  cannot  afford  to  lose.  The  truly 
Honest  man  not  only  does  what  is 
Right  for  his  own  sake,  and  strives 
always  to  be  sure  in  his  knowledge 
of  it,  but  he  strives  to  think  Right 
thoughts  and  to  feel  Right  feelings. 
He  is  as  Honest  to  himself  as  to 
others.  He  sees  that  it  is  as  much 
against  his  Honor  to  deceive  himself, 
or  to  allow  himself  to  be  led  astray 
in  his  opinions  or  beliefs  by  careless 
thinking,  or  by  unnecessary  ignorance, 
as  it  is  against  his  Honor  to  mislead 
other  men.  In  this  case  he  is  con- 
89 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

sidering  the  Line  of  Right  between 
his  whole  self,  as  an  intelligent,  free 
being,  made  up  of  reason,  will,  and 
Honesty  to  feeling,  on  one  side,  and  that 
part  of  himself,  on  the  other, 
which  thinks;  and  he  finds  a  claim 
on  his  own  thought  that  is  like  the 
claim  to  truth  which  he  makes  on 
other  men.  He  brings,  then,  all  the 
forces  of  his  being  into  action  to  fulfill 
the  claim,  and  to  be,  therefore,  true  to 
himself.  He  stimulates  and  enlightens 
his  thinking,  to  the  utmost  of  his  abil- 
ity; disciplines  his  passions  and  feel- 
ings; strengthens  his  will;  trains  his 
habits ;  and  so  makes  Rightness,  in  be- 
lief, inclination,  and  action,  the  chief 
end  of  his  life.  That,  and  no  less  than 


90 


INTEGRITY  —  HONOR  —  HONESTY 

that,  makes  the  character  of  a  really 
Honest  Man. 

EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

THE  HONESTY  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Abraham  Lincoln,  when  he  practiced  law  in 
Illinois,  got  the  familiar  name  among  the  peo- 
ple of  "  Honest  Old  Abe,"  and  was  looked 
upon  as  the  typical  Honest  Man.  What  won 
him  this  name  and  reputation  was  described 
by  Judge  Drummond,  one  of  the  judges  of 
the  courts  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  practiced,  as 
follows :  "  He  never  intentionally  misrepre- 
sented the  evidence  of  a  witness  nor  the  argu- 
ment of  an  opponent.  He  met  both  squarely, 
and  if  he  could  not  explain  the  one  or  answer 
the  other,  substantially  admitted  it.  He  never 
misstated  the  law,  according  to  his  own  intel- 
ligent view  of  it."  This  is  quoted  by  Messrs. 
Nicolay  and  Hay,  in  their  great  life  of  Lin- 


91 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

coin,  and  they  add  that  he  always  avoided  a 
cause  which  he  thought  to  be  wrong  "  when 
he  could  consistently  with  the  rules  of  his 
profession.  He  would  often  persuade  a  fair- 
minded  litigant  of  the  injustice  of  his  case 
and  induce  him  to  give  it  up.  His  partner, 
Mr.  Herndon,  relates  a  speech  in  point  which 
Lincoln  once  made  to  a  man  who  offered  him 
an  objectionable  case :  '  Yes,  there  is  no  rea- 
sonable doubt  that  I  can  gain  your  case  for 
you.  I  can  set  a  whole  neighborhood  at  log- 
gerheads ;  I  can  distress  a  widowed  mother 
and  her  six  fatherless  children,  and  thereby 
get  for  you  six  hundred  dollars,  which  right- 
fully belongs,  it  appears  to  me,  as  much  to 
them  as  it  does  to  you.  I  shall  not  take  your 
case,  but  I  will  give  a  little  advice  for  nothing. 
You  seem  a  sprightly,  energetic  man.  I  would 
advise  you  to  try  your  hand  at  making  six 
hundred  dollars  in  some  other  way.' " 

DEGREES  OF  HONESTY.    "  Many  are  they 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

who  are  capable  of  being  honest  because  dis- 
honesty is  an  injury  to  a  fellow ;  a  less  num- 
ber are  honest  because  honesty  is  a  duty.  .  .  . 
Fewer  still  are  they  who  are  honest  because 
they  would  scorn  to  smirch  themselves  with 
baseness,  and  who  dread  the  remorse  of  seem- 
ing mean  in  their  own  eyes.  But  very  few 
indeed  are  they  who  are  honest  with  no 
thought  of  any  consequence,  near  or  remote, 
external  or  entirely  within  themselves ;  who 
love  to  dwell  with  honesty  as  they  love  to 
inhabit  a  region  of  exquisite  beauty,  or  to 
linger  amid  the  fairest  creations  of  genius, 
solely  because  these  are  in  themselves  delight- 
ful." —  A.  SUTHERLAND,  The  Origin  and 
Growth  of  the  Moral  Instinct,  ch.  xvii.  (v.  2.) 
EMERSON  ON  THE  EFFECT  OF  PUTTING 
TEN  DISHONEST  MERCHANTS  IN  THE  PLACE 
OF  TEN  HONEST  ONES.  In  his  essay  on 
"  Wealth  "  Emerson  says :  "  If  you  take  out 
of  State  Street  [Boston]  the  ten  honestest 
93 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

merchants  and  put  in  ten  roguish  persons 
controlling  the  same  amount  of  capital,  the 
rates  of  insurance  will  indicate  it ;  the  sound- 
ness of  banks  will  show  it ;  the  highways  will 
be  less  secure;  the  schools  will  feel  it,  the 
children  will  bring  home  their  little  dose  of 
the  poison ;  the  judge  will  sit  less  firmly  on 
the  bench,  and  his  decisions  will  be  less  up- 
right ;  he  has  lost  so  much  support  and  con- 
straint, which  all  need ;  and  the  pulpit  will 
betray  it,  in  a  laxer  rule  of  life.  An  apple- 
tree,  if  you  take  out  every  day  for  a  number 
of  days  a  load  of  loam  and  put  in  a  load  of 
sand  about  its  roots,  will  find  it  out.  An 
apple-tree  is  a  stupid  kind  of  creature,  but  if 
this  treatment  be  pursued  for  a  short  time  I 
think  it  would  begin  to  mistrust  something. 
And  if  you  should  take  out  of  the  powerful 
class  engaged  in  trade  a  hundred  good  men 
and  put  in  a  hundred  bad,  or,  what  is  just 
the  same  thing,  introduce  a  demoralizing  in- 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

stitution,  would  not  the  dollar,  which  is  not 
much  stupider  than  an  apple-tree,  presently 
find  it  out  ?  The  value  of  a  dollar  is  social, 
as  it  is  created  by  society.  Every  man  who 
removes  into  this  city  with  any  purchasable 
talent  or  skill  in  him,  gives  to  every  man's 
labor  in  the  city  a  new  worth.  If  a  talent  is 
anywhere  born  into  the  world,  the  community 
of  nations  is  enriched  ;  and  much  more  with  a 
new  degree  of  probity." 


95 


VII 

RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

ALL  the  dealings  among  people  which 
bear  the  general  name  of  "  Business " 
are  supposed  to  form  part  of  a  great 
system  of  arrangements  for  exchang- 
ing labor,  to  the  end  that  each  person 
may  have  the  help  of  many,  in  the 
different  kinds  of  work  which  our 
comfort  and  happiness  demand,  in- 
stead of  being  left  to  do  everything 
for  himself.  The  sole  reason  for  buy- 
ing anything  from  another,  instead  of 
making  or  trying  to  make  it  for  one- 
self, and  the  sole  reason  for  producing 
things  to  sell  to  others,  instead  of  pro- 
ducing only  for  one's  own  wants,  is 

96 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

found,  of  course,  in  the  convenience 
and  benefit  resulting  to  everybody 
from  such  a  division  and  exchange  of 
the  work  of  the  world.  For  the  same 
reason,  and  no  other,  buyers  and  sell- 
ers are  willing  to  pay  profits,  interest 
on  capital,  commissions,  etc.,  to  mer- 
chants, shippers,  bankers,  and  other 
"  middlemen  "  in  commerce,  who  man- 
age and  conduct  the  exchange.  In 
other  words,  the  whole  arrangement 
of  what  we  call  "  business"  is  one  of 
reciprocity,  expected  to  be  profitable 
and  beneficial  to  all  concerned. 

But  the  principle  of  reciprocity 
(which  means,  literally,  a  movement 
backwards  and  forwards)  is  the  princi- 
ple of  the  Golden  Eule  ;  and  when  the 
Chinese  philosopher,  Confucius,  gave 

97 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

that  Kule  to  his  disciples  he  is  said 
to  have  described  it  by  a  word  which 
signifies  reciprocity  in  the  language 
that  he  used.  Hence,  the  natural,  ex- 
pected, rightful  working  of  all  trade, 
all  industrial  dealing,  all  "  business,"  is 
on  the  backward  and  forward  straight 
The  spirit  line  of  the  Golden  Eule,  and 

natural  to 

trade.  the  spirit  natural  to  it  is  one 

that  would  strive  to  make  it  beneficial 
to  all,  so  that  its  purpose  may  be  al- 
ways fulfilled.  Any  other  disposition 
in  trade,  or  in  occupations  connected 
with  trade,  makes  it  a  sham  and  a  fal- 
sity, pretending  to  be  what  it  is  not, 
and  needing  to  be  rooted  out  of  the 
world. 

If  all  trade  could  go  on  between  near 
neighbors  and  friends,  and  no  others, 

98 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

this  fact  would  be  kept  more  in  mind 
than  it  is.  In  so  small  a  circle  of  deal- 
ings the  claim  of  each  to  equal  bene- 
fits from  the  arrangement  of  exchange 
would  then  make  itself  constantly  heard, 
and  none  could  lose  very  easily  the 
sense  of  being  bound,  both  in  honor 
(self-respect)  and  by  self-interest,  to 
give  to  others  the  good  value  he  would 
have  them  give  to  him,  —  which  is  the 
Golden  Rule  in  its  commercial  form. 
But  our  dealings  are  with  all  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  what  goes  from  us  being 
scattered  through  every  continent,  and 
what  returns  to  us  coming  from  a  thou- 
sand unknown  hands,  of  every  color 
and  race ;  and  this  seems  to  cause  people 
to  lose  sight  very  often  of  what  would 
be  plain  to  them  if  buyer  and  seller  were 

99 


A  PEIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

not  so  far  apart.  In  many  minds  the 
operations  of  industrial  commerce  are, 
apparently,  never  thought  of  as  belong- 
ing to  a  great  beneficent  system  of 
A  Descent  exchanges  among  the  people 
earth,  by  the  working 


of  which  they  seek  together 
to  make  the  most  of  their  labor,  and 
to  obtain  from  it  the  largest  good. 
To  such  minds,  on  the  contrary,  the 
world's  "  business  "  seems  to  be  looked 
on  as  having  the  nature  of  a  barbaric 
scramble,  for  the  most  that  can  be 
snatched  out  of  other  hands,  giving  up 
as  little  as  possible  in  return.  If  this 
view  and  practice  came  to  be  general, 
trade  would  cease,  and  with  it  civiliza- 
tion would  come  to  an  end. 

To  say  that  the  expected  result  —  the 

100 


BIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN   "BUSINESS" 

proper  and  right  result  —  from  every 
transaction  that  belongs  truly  to  the  in- 
dustrial and  commercial  "  business  "  of 
the  world  is  beneficial  to  all  the  parties 
engaged  in  it,  is  not  to  say  that  failures 
of  that  result  are  caused  by  wrong- 
doing alone.  Mistakes,  miscalculations, 
accidents,  and  thousands  of  the  circum- 
stances in  life  that  cannot  be  foreseen, 
are  constantly  interfering  with  the  com- 
plicated exchanges  of  mankind,  to  make 
some  people  losers,  through  no  fault  on 
the  part  of  those  who  gain.  How  far  in 
such  cases  the  gainers  can  rightly  take 
the  full  advantage  thrown  into  their 
hands  is  a  question  to  be  settled  by  the 
Golden  Rule,  applied  by  each  man  for 
himself.  But  nothing  that  happens  in 

this  way  is  treacherous  to  the  under- 
101 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 
standing  and  expectation  of  fair  trade, 

The  treachery  while  that  treachery  is  prac- 
ticed in  every  smallest  fraud. 
To  make  and  market  things  which  are 
not  what  they  seem  to  be,  by  adulter- 
ation, by  scamped  work,  or  by  false 
labeling,  is  not  only  to  steal  and  to  lie, 
but  it  is  to  be  guilty  of  an  infamous 
treason  against  the  system  of  indus- 
trial exchange  which  upholds  the  civ- 
ilization of  the  world.  That  is  the 
actual  nature  of  a  detestable  kind  of 
crime  which  seems  to  increase  in  the 
manufacturing  and  trading  of  the  world, 
and  which  is  treated  too  leniently  by 
public  opinion  as  well  as  by  law. 

For  conduct  in  "  business  "  dealings 
there  seem  to  be  two  Golden  Rules, 

—  one  positive  (as  stated  already),  To 
102 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

give  to  others  the  good  value  you  would 
have  them  give  to  you  ;   the  The  two 

Golden  Rules 

other  negative,  To  take  no  of  business. 
gain  that  is  got  by  MAKING  another 
suffer  loss.  The  former  is  not  likely 
to  be  questioned  ;  but  the  latter  may 
be,  for  it  condemns  dealings  of  an  im- 
mensely large  class,  which  great  num- 
bers of  people  are  assuming  to  be 
either  entirely  Right,  or  no  more  than 
slightly  Wrong.  Betting,  for  example, 
is  a  transaction  of  the  nature  referred 
to,  in  its  simplest  form.  That  one 
should  gain  from  a  bet,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  the  other  should  lose.  His 
gain  is  made  ~by  the  other's  loss.  The 
loss  is  an  intended  consequence  of  the 
gain.  In  this  respect  the  transfer  of 
property  or  money  from  one  person 

103 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

to  another  occurs  precisely  as  it  does 
by  theft.  But  the  loser  of  a  bet  has 
consented  in  advance  to  his  loss,  while 
the  loser  by  a  theft  has  not  ;  and  this 
important  difference  of  circumstance  is 
supposed  by  many  people  to  cleanse  the 
betting  transaction  of  all  wrong.  But 
does  it  ?  What  is  a  bet  but  an  agree- 
ment between  two  persons  that  one 
shall  be  allowed  to  despoil  the  other  of 

Betting  ana  a  given  sum  of  money,  and 
that  some  uncertain  or  chance 
happening  —  in  a  horse-race  or  a  game 
of  cards,  perhaps  —  shall  decide  which 
is  to  be  the  despoiler  and  which  the 
despoiled?  The  loser  has  consented  in 
advance  to  submit  to  the  spoliation  — 
but  why  ?  Simply  because  he  hoped  and 
felt  sure  that  the  spoil  would  come  to 

104 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

himself.  The  motive  of  the  bet  on  both 
sides  was  that  hope,  which  is  plainly  as 
immoral,  as  contrary  to  Eight,  as  any 
motive  in  human  conduct  can  be.  The 
loser  makes  no  gift  of  the  money  he 
has  lost ;  he  yields  it  under  the  compul- 
sion of  ill-luck.  If  he  had  yielded  it  to 
the  compulsion  of  a  pistol  the  real  na- 
ture of  his  loss  would  have  been  the 
same  ;  but  he  himself,  in  that  case, 
would  have  had  no  partnership  in  the 
wrong-doing  of  the  affair.  As  it  is, 
he  has  made  himself  accessory  to  the 
Wrong,  which  does  not  better  it  in  the 
moral  view. 

If  this  is  rightly  reasoned  (and  where 
is  there  a  flaw  in  the  reasoning?),  it 
condemns  all  gaming  for  money ;  but 
it  goes  much  farther  than  that.  A 

105 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

deplorably  large  part  of  what  goes  by 
the  name  of  "  business  "  in  the  world 
has  acquired  the  nature  of  betting,  — 
Betting  and  simply  that  and  nothing  else. 

gambling  In 

business.  Instead  of  actually  buying 
and  selling  such  commodities  as  corn 
and  pork,  or  such  pieces  of  property 
as  the  shares  of  a  railroad,  men  stake 
money  on  the  chances  of  a  future  rise 
or  fall  in  the  prices  of  such  things.  It 
is  called  "  speculation  ;  "  but  it  is  the 
speculation  of  gambling,  not  specula- 
tion in  trade.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with 
trade.  It  connects  itself  in  no  way  with 
the  producing  or  the  exchanging  of 
things.  Those  who  engage  in  it  are  en- 
tirely outside  of  all  the  movements  of 
useful  industry  and  real  trade,  standing 
as  onlookers  to  watch  them  and  to  bet 

106 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN   "BUSINESS" 

with  each  other  on  the  future  course 
those  movements  will  take,  doing  what 
they  can,  meantime,  to  disturb  the  nat- 
ural market  by  falsifying  reports  and 
exciting  cries.  Such  so-called  "  busi- 
ness "  bears  no  resemblance  to  the  use- 
ful busying  which  the  word  properly 
implies  ;  and  yet  the  two  are  much 
confused  in  the  common  notions  of 
"  business  "  that  now  prevail.  A  clear 
distinction  between  them  needs  to  be 
drawn  ;  and  a  still  clearer  distinction 
between  equitable  gains  derived  from 
the  beneficial  commerce  of  mankind, 
and  the  predatory  gains  which  one  may 
get  by  making  another  lose. 

Speculation  in  actual  trade  is  some- 
thing very  different  from  this.  It  is  an 
exercise  of  foresight,  calculation,  know- 

107 


A  PEIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

ledge,  which  enters  more  or  less  into 
all  commercial  dealing,  and  its  right- 
specuiative  ness  depends  on  the  care  that 
is  taken  to  harm  no  others. 
It  is  manifestly  Eight  that  one  who 
carefully  cultivates  and  uses  his  intel- 
ligence to  some  serviceable  end  should 
have  the  benefit  of  an  advantage  over 
those  who  do  not ;  and  this  can  come 
to  him  in  trade  with  no  loss  to  others, 
whose  benefit  is  merely  less,  and  justly 
less,  than  his  own.  He  is  bound  by 
the  great  Rule  of  Right  to  use  any 
advantage  he  may  happen  to  possess, 
whether  of  strength  in  his  body,  or  of 
energy  in  his  spirit,  or  of  capability  in 
his  mind,  with  careful  consideration  for 
his  fellow  men.  That  marks  a  limit 
which  each  must  find  for  himself. 

103 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN   "BUSINESS" 

"Within  that  limit,  if  he  is  performing  a 
useful  part  in  society,  as  a  middleman 
between  producer  and  consumer,  it  is 
clearly  his  right  to  buy  to-day  instead 
of  to-morrow,  and  sell  to-morrow  in- 
stead of  to-day,  with  some  risk  of  loss 
for  a  chance  of  increased  gain  ;  and  this 
is  speculative  trade  or  "  business  "  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  words.  What 
one  gains  in  it  is  not  obtained  by  mak- 
ing another  lose.  A  may  win  a  profit 
which  B,  with  equal  sagacity  or  alert- 
ness, might  have  had  ;  but  A's  gain 
makes  B  no  poorer  than  he  was  before. 

EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 
FRAUD  WORSE  THAN  THEFT  IN  THE  MOR- 
ALS  OF  THE  LILLIPUTIANS.     In  the  satirical 
romance  of  "  Gulliver's  Travels,"  Dean  Swift 
represents  Gulliver  as  saying  of  the  Lillipu- 
109 


A  PKIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

tians :  "  They  look  upon  fraud  as  a  greater 
crime  than  theft,  and  therefore  seldom  fail  to 
punish  it  with  death  ;  for  they  allege  that  care 
and  vigilance,  with  a  very  common  under- 
standing, may  preserve  a  man's  goods  from 
thieves,  but  honesty  has  no  fence  against  su- 
perior cunning  ;  and  since  it  is  necessary  that 
there  should  be  a  perpetual  intercourse  of  buy- 
ing and  selling,  and  dealing  upon  credit,  where 
fraud  is  permitted  and  connived  at,  or  has  no 
law  to  punish  it,  the  honest  dealer  is  always 
undone,  and  the  knave  gets  the  advantage.  I 
remember,  when  I  was  once  interceding  with 
the  king  for  a  criminal  who  had  wronged  his 
master  of  a  great  sum  of  money,  which  he  had 
received  by  order  and  ran  away  with,  and  hap- 
pening to  tell  his  majesty,  by  way  of  extenua- 
tion, that  it  was  only  a  breach  of  trust,  the 
emperor  thought  it  monstrous  in  me  to  offer 
as  a  defence  the  greatest  aggravation  of  the 
crime ;  and  truly  I  had  little  to  say  in  return, 
110 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN   "BUSINESS" 

farther  than  the  common  answer,  that  differ- 
ent nations  had  different  customs ;  for,  I  con- 
fess, I  was  heartily  ashamed." 

CICERO  ON  THE  MORALS  OF  TRADE.  The 
following  passages  are  from  chapters  v.,  vi., 
xii.,  and  xiii.  of  the  Third  Book  of  Cicero's 
"  Offices,"  the  treatise  on  Moral  Duties  which 
he  wrote  for  the  instruction  of  his  son  Mar- 
cus: — 

"  To  take  away  wrongfully  from  another, 
and  for  one  man  to  advance  his  own  interest 
by  the  disadvantage  of  another  man,  is  more 
contrary  to  nature  than  death,  than  poverty, 
than  pain,  than  any  other  evils  which  can  be- 
fall either  our  bodies  or  external  circum- 
stances. For,  in  the  first  place,  it  destroys 
human  intercourse  and  society ;  for  if  each  for 
his  own  gain  shall  despoil  or  offer  violence  to 
another,  the  inevitable  consequence  is  that  the 
society  of  the  human  race,  which  is  most  con- 
sistent with  nature,  will  be  broken  asunder. 
Ill 


A  PKIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

...  It  is  indeed  allowed,  nature  not  opposing, 
that  each  should  rather  acquire  for  himself 
than  for  another,  whatever  pertains  to  the  en- 
joyment of  life ;  but  nature  does  not  allow 
this,  that  by  the  spoliation  of  others  we  should 
increase  our  own  means,  resources  and  opu- 
lence." "  One  thing,  therefore,  ought  to  be 
aimed  at  by  all  men:  that  the  interest  of 
each  individually  and  of  all  collectively  should 
be  the  same  ;  for  if  each  should  grasp  at  his 
individual  interest,  all  human  society  will  be 
dissolved." 

In  another  part  of  this  fine  treatise,  Cicero  il- 
lustrates his  idea  of  honor  or  Tightness  in  trade 
by  the  following  example  :  "  Cases  often  occur 
when  profit  seems  to  be  opposed  to  rectitude, 
so  that  it  is  necessary  to  consider  whether  it  is 
plainly  opposed,  or  can  be  reconciled  with  rec- 
titude. Of  that  sort  are  these  questions  r  If, 
for  example,  an  honest  man  has  brought  from 
Alexandria  to  Rhodes  a  great  quantity  of 
112 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

grain  during  the  scarcity  and  famine  of  the 
Rhodians,  and  the  very  high  prices  of  provi- 
sions; if  this  same  man  should  know  that 
many  merchants  had  sailed  from  Alexandria, 
and  should  have  seen  their  vessels  on  the 
way,  laden  with  corn,  and  bound  for  Rhodes, 
should  he  tell  that  to  the  Rhodians,  or,  keep- 
ing silence,  should  he  sell  his  corn  at  as 
high  a  price  as  possible  ?  We  are  supposing 
a  wise  and  honest  man;  we  are  inquiring 
about  the  deliberation  and  consultation  of  one 
who  would  not  conceal  the  matter  from  the 
Rhodians  if  he  thought  it  dishonorable,  but  is 
in  doubt  whether  it  be  dishonorable."  Cicero 
discusses  the  question  and  decides  that  it 
would  be  dishonorable  for  the  corn-merchant  to 
conceal  from  the  Rhodians  the  coming  of  the 
other  ships  with  larger  supplies  of  food.  For, 
he  asks,  "  as  to  this  sort  of  concealment,  who 
does  not  see  what  kind  of  thing  it  is,  and  what 
kind  of  man  will  practice  it  ?  Certainly  not 
113 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

an  open,  not  a  single-minded,  not  an  ingenu- 
ous, not  a  just,  not  a  good  man."  Some  mod- 
ern commentators  on  this  passage  in  Cicero's 
writings  have  tried  to  find  ingenious  reasons 
for  disputing  his  judgment ;  but  the  great  old 
Roman's  sense  of  Honor  and  Right  was  finer 
and  truer  than  theirs. 

HORACE  MANN'S  VIEW.  "  The  man  who 
sells  one  thing  for  another,  or  less  for  more,  or 
an  inferior-  for  a  superior  quality,  though  he 
may  enter  a  large  item  on  the  '  Profit '  side 
of  his  earthly  ledger,  yet,  in  the  Book  of  Life, 
he  will  find  it  entered  on  the  side  of  '  Loss.' 
.  .  .  What  are  palaces  and  equipages,  what 
though  a  man  could  cover  a  continent  with  his 
title-deeds,  or  an  ocean  with  his  commerce, 
compared  with  conscious  rectitude ;  with  a 
face  that  never  turns  pale  at  the  accuser's 
voice ;  with  a  bosom  that  never  throbs  at  the 
fear  of  exposure ;  with  a  heart  that  might  be 
turned  inside  out  and  discover  no  stain  of  dis- 
114 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  "BUSINESS" 

honor  ?  To  have  done  no  man  a  wrong ;  to 
have  put  your  signature  to  no  paper  to  which 
the  purest  angel  in  heaven  might  not  have 
been  an  attesting  witness;  to  walk  and  live, 
unseduced,  within  arm's  length  of  what  is 
not  your  own;  with  nothing  between  your 
desire  and  its  gratification  but  the  invisible 
law  of  rectitude, — this  is  to  be  a  man."  — 
HORACE  MANN,  Thoughts  for  a  Young  Man 
(in  Lectures  on  Various  Subjects),  p.  67. 

WHAT  is  CALLED  "A  GOOD  BARGAIN." 
"  The  theory  of  the  modern  bargain  appears 
to  be  that  of  the  mediaeval  judicial  combat ; 
let  each  do  his  worst,  and  God  will  protect 
the  right.  .  .  .  What  is  ordinarily  termed  '  a 
good  bargain '  is,  morally,  a  bad  bargain ;  it 
is  unequal,  and  good  for  one  party  only. 
Whenever  such  a  transaction  takes  place  some 
one  is  plundered.  It  is  the  sufferer,  in  such 
cases,  who  usually  regrets  the  occurrence ;  in 
an  ideal  society  it  would  be  the  gainer  who 
115 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

would  mourn.  .  .  .  Sackcloth  and  ashes  are 
the  proper  covering  of  the  man  who  has  made 
'a  good  bargain.'"  —  New  Englander,  38: 
157. 


116 


VIII 

EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

IN  many  parts  of  our  conduct  we  act 
in  two  characters,  sometimes  in  more. 
We  act  always  as  single  persons,  re- 
lated alike  to  all  other  persons,  and 
always,  too,  as  members  of  some  soci- 
ety or  body  of  persons  united  for  some 
special  purposes  of  action  as  a  whole. 
The  most  important  of  such  societies 
are  those  great  ones  that  form  nations 
or  states,  wherein  we  are  joined  to- 
gether for  common  purposes  of  gov- 
ernment and  law;  and  when  these  are 
democratic,  as  in  America,  we  act  again 
in  two  characters,  —  as  the  governors 
and  as  the  governed.  "We  act,  that 

117 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

is,  by  combination  in  shaping  the  gov- 
•me  governed  ernment   and  the  law  which 

are  the  gov- 
ernors. we  act  individually  in  sub- 
mitting to.  This  government  of  each 
by  all,  all  taking  authority  from  each, 
is  not  described  with  strict  correctness 
when  we  call  it  "  self-government," 
as  we  commonly  do;  since  each  self 
shares  both  the  ruling  and  the  being 
ruled  with  millions  of  selves  besides 
his  own. 

"When  we  carefully  consider  these 
several  relations  in  which  we  live  and 
act  as  citizens  of  the  democratic  re- 
public of  the  United  States,  we  find 
that  our  political  conduct  as  citizens 
needs  serious  thinking  to  make  it 
Right.  We  have  to  think  of  what  we 
justly  owe  to  ourselves,  —  to  our  own 

118 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

judgment  of  Tightness  and  wisdom  in 
measures  of  government,  and  to  our 
own  highest  interests,  as  affected  by 
the  general  state  of  things  which  gov- 
ernment produces  in  the  land.  Equally, 
we  have  to  think  of  the  welfare,  the 
claims,  the  interests,  of  nearly  eighty 
millions  of  people  besides  ourselves, 

for  whom  we  hold  our  polit-  Responsibil- 
ity to  our  f  el- 

ical  powers  in  trust,  and  for  low  citizens, 
whom  we  act  in  every  vote  we  cast 
and  every  political  opinion  we  declare, 
as  much  as  for  ourselves.  In  assum- 
ing to  be  partners  in  the  government 
of  a  nation  we  assume  a  responsibility 
to  all  the  subjects  of  the  government. 
Though  each  citizen  is  but  one  of 
fourteen  millions  and  more  who  take 
part  in  the  direction  of  the  government 

119 


A  PRIMER    OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

by  their  votes,  he  is  just  as  responsible 
for  so  much  as  his  action  affects,  or 
might  affect,  as  he  would  be  if  he 
governed  autocratically  from  a  throne. 
Then  we  have  to  think,  not  merely  of 
what  we  do  or  can  do  by  our  votes, 
but  also  of  the  influence,  from  know- 
ledge, or  opinion,  or  example,  that  we 
may  exert  or  do  exert  over  other  votes. 
In  mere  voting,  a  citizen  may  exercise 
only  one  fourteen-millionth  part  of  the 
power  of  government  in  the  United 
States,  while  in  influence  his  actual 
share  of  that  power  may  be  ten,  or  a 
hundred,  or  a  thousand  times  as  much. 
He  is  responsible  for  what  he  does  by 
influence,  and  he  is  no  less  responsible 
for  what  he  might  do  and  does  not, 

to  help  in  preserving  Tightness  in  the 
120 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

measures  of  government  and  in  pre- 
venting wrong. 

Again,  —  we  have  to  give  careful 
attention  to  the  working  of  the  com- 
binations of  "  party "  that  we  form 
with  other  citizens,  whose  aims  and 
opinions  are  more  or  less  in  agreement 
with  our  own.  Such  political  parties 
are  necessary  means  to  be  employed 
for  bringing  those  together  who  think 
somewhat  nearly  alike,  as  to  what 
should  be  the  course  of  government 
in  matters  of  chief  importance,  and 
for  concentrating  their  action  on  such 
matters  to  give  it  effect.  But  people 
who  enter  a  party  are  always  in  danger 

of  forgetting  that  it  is  only  a  political  par- 
ties a  means, 

means  to  use  for  accomplish-  not  an  end. 

ing  well-considered  ends;   that  it  is 
121 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

properly  an  instrument  to  work  with, 
—  a  servant  to  be  employed;  and 
when  they  forget  this  they  allow  it  to 
take  possession  of  them,  and  are  com- 
manded by  it,  instead  of  being  served. 
It  is  not  possible  for  one  who  studies 
public  matters  with  thoughtful  care  to 
be  in  complete  agreement  with  any 
political  party  on  every  question  that 
arises,  and  throughout  his  whole  life. 
The  party  for  such  a  citizen  is  the  one 
which,  at  any  given  time,  is  aiming  to 
do  the  things  that  he  deems  then  to 
be  most  important,  in  the  way  that 
he  judges  to  be  wise  and  Eight.  His 
right  place  of  political  action  is  in  that 
party  so  long,  and  only  so  long,  as  it 
will  help  him  to  do  what  he  believes 

is  most  needing  to  be  done.     But  men 
122 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

are   prone   to  form   habits   of   attach- 
ment to  a  party  that  hold  them 


of  party  1  eel- 

fast  after  every  such  reason  ingasanawt. 
has  ceased  to  exist.  In  that  case  they 
exercise  no  longer  any  thought  for 
themselves  in  political  matters,  —  act 
on  no  judgment  of  their  own;  they 
have  surrendered  the  sovereignty  of 
their  citizenship,  and  are  willing,  as 
mere  partisans,  to  do  the  bidding  of 
other  men.  The  weak  tendency  in 
human  nature  to  this  partisan  habit 
does  measureless  mischief  to  demo- 
cratic governments,  by  making  it  easy 
for  self-seeking  politicians  to  master 
and  use  great  parties  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  their  own  ends. 

Lastly,  but  not  least,  in  our  conduct 
as  citizens  we  are  called  upon  to  think 

123 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

of  our  country,  not  merely  as  an  asso- 
ciation of  people  whose  common  wel- 
fare is  to  be  sought,  but  as  an  object 
in  itself  of  warm  and  deep  affections, 
which  move  us  as  few  other  affections 
do.  "Why  men  love  their  own  country 
so  much  more  than  the  rest  of  the  world 
seems  sometimes,  in  some  countries, 
very  strange ;  but  the  affection  is  an 
instinct  in  human  nature,  and  it  works 
good  or  harm,  according  to  the  enlight- 
ened cultivation  it  has  received.  It  has 
been  the  frequent  cause  of  wicked  and 
terrible  wars,  arising  out  of  perverted 
untrained  notions  of  national  greatness 
LSDL  and  glory  and  honor,  all  ani- 
mated by  an  untrained  and  misguided 
passion  of  patriotic  love  and  pride. 
The  passion,  in  itself,  is  one  of  great 

124 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

nobility,  often  lifting  men  to  heights  of 
unselfish  devotion  which  hardly  any 
other  would  give  them  strength  to  at- 
tain ;  but  no  other  passion  can  be  more 
unreasonably  or  more  wickedly  used. 

The  highest  duty  we  can  find  in  our 
citizenship  is  that  of  educating  our  pa- 
triotism to  be  moved  by  true  stimula- 
tions to  right  objects  and  ends.  We 
cannot  love  our  country  too  ardently  ; 
we  cannot  think  of  it  with  too  much 
pride  ;  but  why,  and  for  what  ?  Be- 
cause it  is  so  big  ?  Because  it  contains 
so  many  people  ?  Because  it  is  so  rich? 
Because  its  bigness  and  its  riches  make 
it  so  strong?  Or  because  it  is  a  coun- 
try whose  people  have  the  greatest  pos- 
sible opportunities  for  doing  their  best, 
—  for  making  the  most  of  themselves 

125 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 
and  of  their  lives  ?    That,  in  very  truth, 
*s   *^e   one    high    distinction 
?-  of  this  republic  of  ours  over 


all  other  countries  in  the 
world,  and  the  one  ground  for  a  love 
and  pride  that  may  reasonably  exceed 
the  patriotic  pride  and  love  of  other 
peoples.  All  things  considered,  this 
country  does  offer  more  helpfulness  to 
its  inhabitants,  in  every  kind  of  free- 
dom and  free  opportunity  for  every 
kind  of  ambitious  and  aspiring  effort, 
than  older  countries  can.  It  does  so 
not  only  by  its  democratic  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  by  its  democratic  form  of 
society  ;  by  the  spirit  of  all  its  institu- 
tions, as  well  as  by  the  character  of  its 
laws  ;  by  its  customs  and  its  habits  of 
feeling  and  thought  ;  by  its  very  new- 

126 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

ness  as  a  cultivated  land  ;  by  the  im- 
mensity of  its  natural  resources,  which 
stimulate  every  practical  energy  and 
faculty  of  man. 

This,  then,  is  what  gives  to  an  Amer- 
ican the  right  inspiration  of  patriotism 
and  the  right  objects  toward  which  it 
should  press.  It  excites  him  to  no  de- 
sire for  war,  no  craving  for  conquests, 
no  disposition  to  have  his  country  act 
the  part  of  a  national  bully  in  the  world. 
It  makes  him  glad  of  its  strength,  be- 
cause a  strong1  nation  will  not  _ 

The  right 

be  wronged,  and  escapes  all 


need  of  war.     It   gives   him  p 
no  fierce  wish  to  crowd  other  less  for- 
tunate peoples  to  the  wall,  in  manufac- 
tures or  in  trade,  by  a  hard  use  of  the 
advantages  we  hold  in  our  hands.     It 

127 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

turns  his  ambitions  for  the  country  to 
quite  different  ends.  It  bids  him  strive 
to  have  it  made  a  great  power  in  the 
world,  by  example  and  influence,  lead- 
ing the  advance  of  mankind  in  every 
refinement  of  character  and  every  im- 
provement of  the  conditions  of  life, 
showing  what  humanity  can  do  to  up- 
lift itself  when  it  is  wholly  free.  It 
stings  him  with  pain  when  he  sees  any 
part  of  the  great  opportunities  of  the 
American  people  being  wasted  or  ig- 
nobly used.  It  makes  him  laborious  and 
untiring  in  efforts  to  keep  the  course 
of  government  on  lines  of  Wisdom 
and  Eight ;  on  lines,  that  is  to  say,  of 
Truth,  Honor,  Honesty,  Helpfulness 
and  Good  Will  to  humanity  at  large. 
For  the  Lines  of  Right  between  one 

128 


EIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

nation  and  another,  or  between  a  nation 
and  its  citizens,  can  be  no  other  than 
the  Lines  of  Right  between  man  and 
man.  The  same  Golden  Rule  of  Re- 
ciprocity draws  them  all. 

So,  considering  the  several  relations 
in  which  we  stand  as  citizens  of  the 
Republic  of  the  United  States,  we  can 
see  very  plainly  that  every  Line  of 
Right  that  is  to  be  drawn  for  our  polit- 
ical conduct  has  two  parts  to  it,  one 
going  straight  from  the  other,  TheLlneof 
both  pointed  to  the  same  end.  ^^0°" 
In  its  first  part  it  is  the  line 
of  careful  thoughtf ulness  and  study,  — 
to  learn  facts,  to  find  sound  principles, 
to  form  clear  and  independent  judg- 
ments, as  to  what  course  of  govern- 
ment will  be  most  helpful  to  the  best 

129 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

use  of  the  surpassing  opportunities 
for  self-improvement  and  elevation 
which  the  people  of  this  fortunate 
country  hold  in  their  hands  ;  what 
course  is  honorable  and  just,  in  the 
dealings  of  our  nation  with  its  own  peo- 
ple or  with  others  ;  what  course  in  any 
juncture  is  worthy  to  be  made  an  ex- 
ample to  other  nations  ;  what  course 
will  tend  to  qualify  this  Republic  for 
leadership  in  the  higher  civilization  of 
the  world.  In  its  second  part,  it  is  the 
line  of  faithful  and  strenuous  endeavor, 
by  influence  and  vote,  in  cooperation 
with  other  citizens  of  like  thoughtful 
mind,  as  joint  sovereigns  of  a  demo- 
cratic republic,  to  make  the  course  of 
government  accord  with  the  judgments 
thus  carefully  formed. 

130 


EXAMPLES  AND   OPINIONS 

EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 
LOWELL'S  POEM  OF  AMERICAN  PATRIOTISM. 
The  noblest  poem  yet  written  in  America  is 
the  Ode  which  James  Russell  Lowell  recited 
at  Harvard  University,  on  the  21st  of  July, 
1865,  in  commemoration  of  the  patriotic  ser- 
vices of  those  students  and  graduates  of  the 
University  who  had  fought  in  the  war  for  the 
Union,  and  many  of  whom  had  died  for  their 
country.  Every  line  of  it  should  be  stamped 
upon  the  memory  of  all  the  youth  of  America, 
and  especially  these,  which  close  the  Ode :  — 

"  'T  is  no  man  we  celebrate, 

By  his  country's  victories  great, 
A  hero  half,  and  half  the  whim  of  Fate, 
But  the  pith  and  marrow  of  a  Nation 
Drawing  force  from  all  her  men, 
Highest,  humblest,  weakest,  all, 
For  her  time  of  need,  and  then 
Pulsing  it  again  through  them, 
Till  the  basest  can  no  longer  cower, 
131 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

Feeling  his  soul  spring  up  divinely  tall, 
Touched  but  in  passing  by  her  mantle-hem. 


Boom,  cannon,  boom  to  all  the  winds  and  waves  ! 

Clash  out,  glad  bells,  from  every  rocking  steeple ! 

Banners,  adance  with  triumph,  bend  your  staves  ! 
And  from  every  mountain-peak 
Let  beacon-fire  to  answering  beacon  speak, 
Katahdin  tell  Monadnock,  Whitef  ace  he, 

And  so  leap  on  in  light  from  sea  to  sea, 
Till  the  glad  news  be  sent 
Across  a  kindling  continent, 

Making  earth  feel  more  firm  and  air  breathe  braver : 

'  Be  proud !  for  she  is  saved,  and  all  have  helped  to 

save  her ! 

She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all  mankind ! 
The  fire  is  dreadful  in  her  eyes  no  more  ; 
From  her  bold  front  the  helm  she  doth  unbind, 
Sends  all  her  handmaid  armies  back  to  spin, 
And  bids  her  navies,  that  so  lately  hurled 
132 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

Their  crashing  battle,  hold  their  thunders  in, 
Swimming  like  birds  of  calm  along  the  unharmf ul 

shore. 

No  challenge  sends  she  to  the  elder  world, 
That  looked  askance  and  hated ;  a  light  scorn 
Plays  o'er  her  mouth,   as  round  her  mighty 

knees 

She  calls  her  children  back,  and  waits  the  morn 
Of  nobler  day,  enthroned  between  her  subject  seas.' 

"  Bow  down,  dear  Land,  for  thou  hast  found  re- 


Thy  God,  in  these  distempered  days, 
Hath  taught  thee  the  sure  wisdom  of  His  ways, 
And  through  thine  enemies  hath  wrought  thy  peace  ! 

Bow  down  in  prayer  and  praise ! 
No  poorest  in  thy  borders  but  may  now 
Lift  to  the  juster  skies  a  man's  enfranchised  brow, 
0  Beautiful !  my  Country  !  ours  once  more ! 
Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war-dishevelled  hair 
O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  others  wore, 
And  letting  thy  set  lips, 
133 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

Freed  from  wrath's  pale  eclipse, 
The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare, 
What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 
Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know  it, 
Among  the  Nations  bright  beyond  compare  ? 

What  were  our  lives  without  thee  ? 

What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee  ? 

We  reck  not  what  we  gave  thee ; 

We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will  dare." 

WASHINGTON'S  WARNING  AGAINST  THE 
SPIRIT  OF  PARTY.  Washington's  Farewell 
Address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States 
when  he  retired  from  the  presidency  contains 
a  solemn  warning  against  the  dangers  of  an 
indulgence  in  the  party  spirit.  "This  spirit," 
he  wrote,  "  unfortunately,  is  inseparable  from 
our  nature,  having  its  root  in  the  strongest  pas- 
sions of  the  human  mind.  It  exists  under  dif- 
ferent shapes  in  all  governments,  more  or  less 
stifled,  controlled,  or  repressed ;  but,  in  those 
134 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

of  the  popular  form,  it  is  seen  in  its  greatest 
rankness,  and  is  truly  their  worst  enemy.  The 
alternate  domination  of  one  faction  over  an- 
other, sharpened  by  the  spirit  of  revenge,  nat- 
ural to  party  dissension,  which  in  different 
ages  and  countries  has  perpetrated  the  most 
horrid  enormities,  is  itself  a  frightful  despot- 
ism. But  this  leads  at  length  to  a  more  formal 
and  permanent  despotism.  The  disorders  and 
miseries,  which  result,  gradually  incline  the 
minds  of  men  to  seek  security  and  repose  in 
the  absolute  power  of  an  individual ;  and  sooner 
or  later  the  chief  of  some  prevailing  faction, 
more  able  or  more  fortunate  than  his  competi- 
tors, turns  this  disposition  to  the  purposes  of 
his  own  elevation,  on  the  ruins  of  Public  Lib- 
erty. Without  looking  forward  to  an  extrem- 
ity of  this  kind  (which  nevertheless  ought  not 
to  be  entirely  out  of  sight),  the  common  and 
continual  mischiefs  of  the  spirit  of  party  are 
sufficient  to  make  it  the  interest  and  duty  of  a 
135 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

wise  people  to  discourage  and  restrain  it.  It 
serves  always  to  distract  the  Public  Councils, 
and  enfeeble  the  Public  Administration.  It 
agitates  the  community  with  ill-founded  jeal- 
ousies and  false  alarms  ;  kindles  the  animosity 
of  one  part  against  another,  foments  occasion- 
ally riot  and  insurrection.  It  opens  the  door 
to  foreign  influence  and  corruption,  which  find 
a  facilitated  access  to  the  government  itself 
through  the  channels  of  party  passions.  Thus 
the  policy  and  the  will  of  one  country  are  sub- 
jected to  the  policy  and  will  of  another.  There 
is  an  opinion,  that  parties  in  free  countries 
are  useful  checks  upon  the  administration  of 
the  Government,  and  serve  to  keep  alive  the 
spirit  of  Liberty.  This  within  certain  limits 
is  probably  true ;  and  in  Governments  of  a 
Monarchical  cast,  Patriotism  may  look  with 
indulgence,  if  not  with  favor,  upon  the  spirit 
of  party.  But  in  those  of  the  popular  char- 
acter, in  Governments  purely  elective,  it  is  a 
136 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

spirit  not  to  be  encouraged.  From  their  natu- 
ral tendency,  it  is  certain  there  will  always  be 
enough  of  that  spirit  for  every  salutary  pur- 
pose. And,  there  being  constant  danger  of 
excess,  the  effort  ought  to  be,  by  force  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  to  mitigate  and  assuage  it.  A  fire 
not  to  be  quenched,  it  demands  a  uniform 
vigilance  to  prevent  its  bursting  into  a  flame, 
lest,  instead  of  warming,  it  should  consume." 

DR.  FRANCIS  LIEBER  ON  POLITICAL  PAR- 
TIES. "  Parties  are  unavoidable  in  free  coun- 
tries, and  may  be  useful  if  they  acknowledge 
the  country  far  above  themselves.  .  .  .  But 
party  has  no  meaning  in  far  the  greater  num- 
ber of  the  highest  and  the  common  relations 
of  human  life.  When  we  are  ailing,  we  do 
not  take  medicine  by  party  prescription.  We 
do  not  build  ships  by  party  measurement ;  we 
do  not  pray  for  our  daily  bread  by  party  dis- 
tinctions ;  we  do  not  take  our  chosen  ones  to 
our  bosoms  by  party  demarcations,  nor  do  we 
137 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

eat  or  drink,  sleep  or  wake,  as  partisans.  We 
do  not  enjoy  the  flowers  of  spring,  nor  do  we 
harvest  the  grain,  by  party  lines.  We  do  not 
incur  punishments  for  infractions  of  the  com- 
mandments according  to  party  creeds.  We  do 
not  pursue  truth,  or  cultivate  science,  by  party 
dogmas  ;  and  we  do  not,  we  must  not,  love  and 
defend  our  country  and  our  liberty,  dear  to  us 
as  part  and  portion  of  our  very  selves,  accord- 
ing to  party  rules.  Woe  to  him  who  does !  " 
—  FRANCIS  LIEBER,  Address  to  Loyal  Na- 
tional League,  New  York,  April  11,  1863. 

GEORGE  W.  CURTIS  ON  THE  INTELLIGENT 
LOVE  OF  COUNTRY.  "  Patriotism,  or  the  pe- 
culiar relation  of  an  individual  to  his  country, 
is  like  the  family  instinct.  In  the  child  it  is 
a  blind  devotion ;  in  the  man  an  intelligent 
love.  The  patriot  perceives  the  claim  made 
upon  his  country  by  the  circumstances  and  time 
of  her  growth  and  power,  and  how  God  is  to 
be  served  by  using  those  opportunities  of  help- 
138 


EXAMPLES  AND  OPINIONS 

ing  mankind.  Therefore  his  country's  honor 
is  dear  to  him  as  his  own,  and  he  would  as 
soon  lie  and  steal  himself  as  assist  or  excuse 
his  country  in  a  crime.  Eight  and  Wrong, 
Justice  and  Crime,  exist  independently  of  our 
country.  A  public  wrong  is  not  a  private  right 
for  any  citizen.  The  citizen  is  a  man  bound  to 
know  and  to  do  the  right,  and  the  nation  is  but 
an  aggregation  of  citizens.  If  a  man  shout, 
'  My  country,  by  whatever  means  extended 
and  bounded ;  my  country,  right  or  wrong,' 
he  merely  utters  words  such  as  those  might  be 
of  the  thief  who  steals  in  the  street,  or  of  the 
trader  who  swears  falsely  at  the  Custom-house, 
both  of  them  chuckling, '  My  fortune,  however 
acquired.'  Thus  we  see  that  a  man's  country 
is  not  a  certain  area  of  land,  of  mountains, 
rivers  and  woods,  but  it  is  a  principle :  and 
patriotism  is  loyalty  to  that  principle.  In 
poetic  minds  and  in  popular  enthusiasm  this 
feeling  becomes  closely  associated  with  the  soil 
139 


A  PKIMER  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

and  the  symbols  of  the  country.  But  the  secret 
sanctification  of  the  soil  and  the  symbol  is  the 
idea  which  they  represent,  and  this  idea  the 
patriot  worships  through  the  name  and  the 
symbol,  as  a  lover  kisses  with  rapture  the  glove 
of  his  mistress  and  wears  a  lock  of  her  hair 
upon  his  heart."  —  GEORGE  W.  CURTIS,  Ora- 
tion at  Union  College,  July  20,  1857. 

SPARTAN  PATRIOTISM.  In  Plutarch's  life 
of  Lycurgus,  the  lawgiver  of  ancient  Sparta,  it 
is  said  that  "  he  taught  the  citizens  to  think 
nothing  more  disagreeable  than  to  live  for 
themselves.  Like  bees,  they  acted  with  one 
impulse  for  the  public  good.  .  .  .  They  were 
possessed  with  a  thirst  for  honor,  and  had  not 
a  wish  but  for  their  country." 


140 


IX 

SYMPATHY  —  BENEVOLENCE  —  HELP- 
FULNESS 

THAT  Truth  and  Honesty  between  man 
and  man  are  Right  is  a  dictate  of 
reason  more  than  of  feeling  ;  but  that 
Helpfulness  and  Benevolence  have  the 
same  quality  is  a  suggestion  of  feeling, 
which  reason  is  only  called  oil  to  con- 
firm. It  is  a  suggestion  arising  from 
what  we  call  Sympathy,  and  is  mostly, 
if  not  wholly,  an  effect  of  imagination, 
which  excites  some  effort  in  us  to  feel 
as  another  person  seems  to  be  feeling, 
either  painfully  or  pleasurably,  as  the 
case  may  be.  It  is  Nature's  prompting 
and  help  to  human  fellowship,  enabling 

141 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

one,  as  we  say,  to  "  put  himself  in  the 
place  "  of  another,  and  to  imitate,  more 
or  less  perfectly,  the  other's  state  of 
feeling  in  his  own.  We  have  this 
prompting  and  capacity  for  Sympathy 
from  Mature,  just  as  we  have  the 
prompting  to  do  Right,  and  the  capa- 
city to  know  what  is  Right ;  but  we 
make  ourselves  sensitive  or  callous  to 
this  prompting,  as  we  do  to  the  other, 
by  cultivation  or  neglect. 

The  cultivation  of  sympathetic  feel- 
ing has  been  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the 
most  important  kind  of  culture  that 
has  been  going  on  in  what  we  describe 
as  the  civilization  of  mankind.  It  has 
produced  already  immense  results,  di- 
minishing or  removing  many  causes  of 
hideous  suffering  in  the  world,  check- 

142 


SYMPATHY 

ing  many  barbarities,  weakening  many 
hostilities,  spinning  many  threads  of 
fellowship  and  weaving  them  into  the 
social  web.  The  tendency  of  civiliza- 
tion seems  to  be  toward  a  state  of  feel- 
ing that  will  not  allow  any  civilization 

and  sympa- 

suffering  to  exist  which  can  ttv- 
possibly  be  prevented  or  relieved.  We 
are  very  far  now  from  that  state ;  but 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  hope  that  time 
may  bring  it  about.  We  are  far  from 
it  yet  ;  but  our  race  has  traveled  far 
towards  it  since  the  process  of  civiliza- 
tion was  begun.  If  most  of  us,  in  the 
present  generation,  are  not  moved  as 
we  ought  to  be  by  the  suffering  around 
us,  if  we  enjoy  our  own  escapes  from 
it  too  selfishly,  if  we  yield  ourselves 
too  carelessly  to  practices  and  condi- 

143 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

tions  that  make  it  wider  and  worse 
than  it  need  to  be,  we  are  not  able  to 
do  so  as  heedlessly  and  callously  in 
these  days  as  we  might  have  done  in 
former  times.  We  are  pricked  and 
troubled  continually  by  a  guilty  sense 
of  our  own  selfish  inaction  where  we 
feel  that  we  ought  to  act.  If  we  do 
try  sometimes  —  as  I  fear  we  do  — 
not  to  cultivate  a  sympathy  which  is 
troublesome  to  our  ease,  it  is  never 
without  knowing  distinctly  that  we  do 
"Wrong. 

When  we  ourselves  suffer,  we  feel 
that  we  have  an  imperative  claim  on 
others  for  relief,  if  relief  is  in  their 
power,  or  for  kindness  at  their  hands, 
if  it  is  not  ;  and,  when  we  imagine  the 
suffering  of  another,  we  cannot  help 

144 


BENEVOLENCE 

feeling  the  same  claim  come  back  to 
us,  unaltered  in  force.  Probably  there 
are  none  who  have  no  such  feeling ; 
probably  there  are  few  who  try  delib- 
erately to  suppress  or  resist  it ;  but 
probably  there  are  many  who  try  to 
satisfy  it  in  some  easy,  inadequate  way. 
The  easiest  way  is  that  of  money-giv- 
ing "  charity  ; "  and  if  money  could 
extinguish  all  needs,  and  if  what  we 
call  "  charity  "  could  discharge  all 
claims  of  man  upon  man  for  help 
and  kindness,  it  is  quite  possible  that 
the  giving  might  be  raised  Money-giving 
to  an  abounding  sum.  But  "oharlty-" 
money-giving  "  charity,"  even  when  it 
is  well  directed,  can  go  a  very  little 
way  towards  dealing  with  misfortunes, 
distresses  and  sufferings,  as  we  would 

145 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

wish  to  have  them  dealt  with  if  they 
came  upon  ourselves  ;  and  a  great  part 
of  such  easily  rendered  "  charity  "  is 
so  ill  directed  as  to  do  more  of  harm 
than  of  good.  The  help  that  is  wanted 
most  often  from  man  to  man  is  not  out 
of  the  pocket,  but  straight  from  the 
hand,  from  the  heart,  from  the  voice  ; 
it  is  the  help  of  knowledge,  of  judg- 
ment, of  experience  ;  it  is  help  from 
the  stronger  and  the  better  instructed 
to  the  ignorant  and  the  weak.  It  is 
helpfulness  towards  self-help ;  it  is  en- 
couragement and  cheer  ;  it  is  teach- 
ing and  counsel  ;  it  is  sympathy  made 
manifest  ;  it  is  fellowship  and  hearty 
good  will.  It  calls  for  the  giving  of 
time,  thought,  care,  effort  ;  it  may  in- 
terrupt our  occupations,  it  may  break 

146 


HELPFULNESS 

in  on  our  pleasures  ;  its  claims  may 
often  be  disturbing  to  our  comfortable 
ease ;  and  yet,  if  we  feel  towards  our 
fellows  as  we  would  have  them  feel 
toward  us,  we  cannot  wish  to  be  free 
from  such  claims. 

It  is  natural,  and  not  improper,  that 
suffering  in  one  who  is  near  and  dear 
to  us  should  move  our  sympathies  more 
deeply  and  urgently  than  suffering  in 
a  stranger  ;  and  it  is  hardly  less  natu- 
ral that  distress  occurring  in  our  own 
presence,  witnessed  by  our  own  eyes, 
should  affect  us  and  appeal  to  us  more 
than  the  same  distress  made  known 
to  us  from  a  distance  by  report.  The 
claim  for  help,  too,  on  the  nearest 
and  readiest  hands,  is  much  stronger  in 
most  circumstances  than  on  those  more 

147 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

remote.  But,  in  so  far  as  the  need 
for  help  reaches  us  at  all,  neither 
the  strangeness  nor  the  distance  of  the 
sufferer  can  rightly  excuse  us  from  re- 
sponding, as  we  are  able,  to  his  cry. 
Suffering  has  its  right  to  help,  wher- 
ever it  befalls,  from  any  hand  holding 
power  to  help,  wherever  the  hand  may 
be.  That  is  a  feeling  which  has  grown 
and  spread  slowly  in  the  world  until 
even  brute  animals  have  been  brought 
Anlmal  within  the  range  of  the  sym- 
pathy it  represents.  The  low- 
est animal  in  creation  has  its  right  to 
our  protection  from  needless  suffer- 
ing; the  suffering  animal  has  its  right 
to  our  sympathy  and  help  ;  for  Nature 
marks  no  distinction  between  the  suf- 
fering of  a  brute  and  the  suffering  of 

148 


HELPFULNESS 

a  man,  but  compels  us  to  be  pained  in 
imagination  by  both. 

There  have  been  times,  it  is  sicken- 
ing to  remember,  when  even  human 
suffering  was  a  source  of  entertain- 
ment to  whole  communities  of  people  ; 
as  at  Kome,  for  example,  when  the 
deadly  combats  of  gladiators,  and  the 
rending  of  Christian  martyrs  by  furi- 
ous wild  beasts,  were  the  spec-  Onielty  aa 
tacles  most  enjoyed.  Such  "sport" 
heartlessness  is  possible  no  longer ; 
but  something  akin  to  it  still  lingers 
in  practices  against  animals,  which 
make  them  suffer  sometimes  for  hours 
the  terror  of  being  hunted  to  their 
death,  or  which  kill  them  for  no  pur- 
pose but  the  killing,  and  which  men 
are  not  ashamed  to  call  "  sport."  It  is 

149 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

not  the  brute  creature  that  is  wronged 
so  much  by  this  as  the  human  being, 
who  cultivates  the  instincts  of  savagery 
in  himself,  and  scorns  to  have  his  en- 
joyments refined. 


150 


GENTLEMEN  AND  GENTLEWOMEN  — 
THE  IDEAL  OF  CHARACTER  AND 
CULTURE 

LET  us  now  gather  up  the  main  con- 
clusions we  have  reached  in  our  little 
study  of  Tightness  or  rectitude,  and 
mould  them  together,  to  see  what  ideal 
of  a  nobly  cultivated  character  they 
will  shape  in  our  minds. 

If  the  reasoning  we  have  followed  is 
correct,  we  can  sum  the  matter  nearly 
by  saying  that  the  ideal  character  must 
be  that  of  one  who  never  forgets  his 
natural  fellowship  with  all  mankind  ; 
who  sees  himself  reflected  and  feels 
himself  repeated  in  every  human  being, 

151 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

to  such  a  degree  that  he  is  instructed 
by  all  that  is  good  and  warned  by  all 
that  is  evil  in  his  kind,  and  that,  in 
every  communication  or  dealing  with 
another,  he  thinks  of  himself  as  being 
changed  in  place  with  that  other,  in 
order  to  do  as  he  may  feel  that  he 
ought  to  be  done  by.  On  this  outline 
of  a  Golden  Chart  of  Character,  traced 
by  the  Golden  Eule  of  Conduct,  we 
will  note  a  little  of  what  we  have 
learned  to  be  needed  for  filling  it  out. 

First,  and  before  all,  Self-mastery, 
—  the  established  dominion  of  rea- 
son and  the  consciousness  of  right, 
over  impulses  of  passion  and  desire. 
Plainly,  there  is  nothing  that  can  merit 
the  name  of  character  in  man  which 
does  not  rest  on  this.  So  far  as  it  lacks 

152 


CHAEACTER  AND  CULTURE 

in  him,  he  remains  but  an  animal,  and 
the  measure  of  his  manhood  is  the 
measure  of  his  rational  and  moral  self- 
control.  Such  control  is  very  easy  to 
hold  when  won  and  very  hard  to  re- 
cover when  lost.  Nature,  as  inexora- 
ble as  she  is  generous,  makes  it  so  by 
the  strain  of  Habit  which  she  puts 
upon  our  lives.  She  offers  our  Habits 
to  us  as  the  penalties  of  self-indulgence 
and  self -neglect,  or  as  the  rewards  of 
self-command  ;  we  may  take  them  as 
we  choose.  The  cultivated  character  is 
that  for  which  the  wise  choice  is  made, 
so  that  it  is  served  through  life  by 
Habits  formed  and  trained  with  con- 
scientious care. 

Self-mastery  permits  no  carelessness, 
and  he  who  attains  it  will  be  studious 

X 


A  PRIMER  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

to  know  what  is  Right,  as  well  as  will- 
ing and  anxious  to  do  it.  He  will  fol- 
low no  beaten  paths  of  conduct  which 
careless  custom  has  worn  smooth,  but 
will  find  the  Lines  of  Eight  for  him- 
self, by  his  own  thoughtful  survey. 

Of  necessity  he  will  be  Truthful,  for 
nearly  all  Rectitude  is  comprehended 
actually  in  that.  To  be  True  (in  one's 
self  and  towards  all  others)  is  to  be  in 
all  ways  Honest,  in  all  ways  Honorable, 
in  all  ways  Faithful,  in  all  ways  Sincere, 
in  all  ways  Just. 

If  any  part  of  Rectitude  is  not  in- 
cluded here,  it  is  that  which  belongs 
to  the  benevolent,  the  kindly,  the  gra- 
cious side  of  character,  which  we  must 
take  care  that  we  do  not  neglect.  As 
the  suggestions  of  conduct  on  this  side 

154 


CHARACTER  AND  CULTURE 

come  from  feeling  much  more  than 
from  reason,  they  seem  to  be  often  de- 
fective in  characters  that  are  otherwise 
finely  formed.  In  this  region  of  char- 
acter we  need  to  consider  not  only  the 
rectitude  of  what  we  do  to  our  fellows, 
but  the  Manner  of  it ;  for  all  the  plea- 
sure and  most  of  the  moral  profit  of 
human  intercourse  depend  on  the  Man- 
ner in  which  it  is  carried  on.  It  would 
be  quite  possible  for  every  logical  obli- 
gation of  Right  between  man  and  man 
to  be  fulfilled  in  a  manner  so  harsh,  so 
offensive,  so  repulsive,  as  to  keep  them 
hateful  and  hostile  to  each  other,  and 
to  make  an  irredeemably  miserable 
world.  To  Truthfulness,  therefore,  or 
Honesty,  and  even  to  Benevolence  or 
Generosity,  in  human  relations,  there  is 

155 


A  PKIMER  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

needed  the  addition  of  Geniality,  of 
Suavity,  of  Graciousness,  to  make  it 
pleasant  or  profitable  for  men  and  wo- 
men to  dwell  together. 

The  subject  of  Manner,  or  Manners, 
is  one  to  be  considered  as  of  great  im- 
portance, but  not  too  great.  For  Man- 
ner may  be  an  expression  of  character, 
or  it  may  be  a  disguise.  It  may  be  the 
well-cultivated  manifestation  of  kindly 
and  genial  feelings,  outflowing  in  the 
speech,  the  gesture,  the  bearing  and 
demeanor  that  will  represent  them  most 
pleasingly,  in  the  most  finely  expressive 
way.  These  are  the  Good  Manners  that 
we  can  cultivate  as  a  growth  upon  the 
substance  of  a  Good  Character,  to  be 
from  it  and  of  it,  perfecting  it,  and  giv- 
ing us  the  ideal  we  seek.  But  there 

156 


CHARACTER  AND  CULTURE 

are  Manners  of  another  make,  fash- 
ioned by  art  like  a  costume,  that  can  be 
worn  outwardly  upon  a  character  which 
inwardly  they  do  not  fit.  They  are 
made  up  of  phrases  and  attitudes  and 
looks,  the  product  of  conventions  and 
rules.  Within  limits,  the  art  of  polite 
demeanor  which  such  Manners  repre- 
sent has  a  value  that  we  must  not  de- 
spise ;  but  the  tendency  in  most  circles 
to  esteem  them  beyond  their  worth  is 
very  strong.  They  seem  to  be  all  that 
is  needed  to  realize  the  ideal  of  culture 
in  many  minds. 

For  our  nobler  ideal  we  demand  all 
the  graces  of  Manner  that  art  can  per- 
fect, and  all  the  fine  observances  that 
reason  and  good  taste  can  approve,  but 
only  for  the  beautiful  finish  of  a  char- 

157 


A  PRIMER   OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

acter  that  would  be  noble  and  impres- 
sive, even  if  it  had  them  not. 

Those  who  realize  our  ideal  in  some 
sufficient  degree  we  will  class  as  Gen- 
tlemen and  Gentlewomen,  and  so  give 
them  the  highest  rank,  with  the  high- 
est title,  that  exists  in  any  society,  or 
that  can  exist. 


158 


INDEX 


INDEX 

AMERICAN  citizenship,  its  responsibilities,  117-130. 
American  patriotism,  its  right  inspiration  and  objects,  125- 

129;  Lowell's  poem  of,  131-134. 
Anger,  as  habit,  48-49. 
Animals,  cruelty  to,  148-150. 

Appetites :  become  tyrants  of  our  own  making,  43-44. 
Appleton,  Samuel:    his  experience  of   honest  intentions 

among  men,  78-79. 

Bargain,  what  is  called  a  "  good,"  115. 

Benevolence,  144-147. 

Betting,  nature  of  the  transaction  in,  103-105 ;  the  practice 
of  it  in  so-called  "  business,"  105-107. 

"  Business,"  right  and  wrong  in,  96-109 ;  it  is  an  arrange- 
ment of  reciprocity,  96-98 ;  on  the  principle  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  98-99 ;  a  beneficent  system  which  upholds  civiliza- 
tion, not  a  barbaric  scramble,  100 ;  all  fraud  a  treason 
against  it,  101-102 ;  the  two  Golden  Rules,  102-103 ;  bet- 
ting and  gambling  speculation  should  not  be  called  "  busi- 
ness," 103-109 ;  Cicero  on  the  morals  of  trade,  111-114. 

Carefulness  and  carelessness,  the  habit-cultivation  of,  46-48. 
Character,  dignified  by  moral  freedom,  24-25;  the  self- 
making  of,  31-35 ;  the  ideal  of,  151-158. 
Charity,  money-giving,  144-147. 
Cicero,  on  the  morals  of  trade,  111-114. 
Citizenship,  right  and  wrong  hi,  117-130. 
Civilization  and  sympathy,  142-144. 
Clouston,  T.  3. :  on  self-control  a  development,  59. 
Commerce.    See  "  Business." 

161 


INDEX 

Conduct,  the  law  of  right,  19-21.  See,  also,  Right  and 
Wrong. 

Confucius :  his  teaching  of  the  Golden  Rule,  15 ;  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  reciprocity,  97-98. 

Confused  notions  of  Right  and  Wrong :  their  chief  causes, 
63-75;  in  "  business,"  96-109. 

Conscience,  the  mystery  of,  19-21. 

Courtesy,  155-158. 

Cruelty  as  "sport,"  149-150. 

Culture,  the  ideal  of,  151-158. 

Curtis,  George  W. :  his  payment  of  a  great  debt  without 
compulsion  of  law,  77-78. 

Dishonesty.     See  Honesty. 

Dueling,  87. 

Duty,  the  idea  of,  34. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo :  on  the  public  effect  of  dishonest 

merchants,  93-95. 
"  Ethics  of  the  "Dust,"  quotation  from,  79-81. 

Faraday,  Michael :  his  self-mastery,  58. 

Fear,  as  habit,  48-49. 

Franklin,  Benjamin :  his  plan  of  habit-cultivation,  50-55. 

Fraud :  effects  on  one  who  commits  it,  31-33 ;  a  crime  of 
treason  against  civilization,  102;  worse  than  theft,  109- 
111. 

Free  will.     See  Freedom,  Moral. 

Freedom,  moral :  our  possession  of  it,  19-24 ;  we  are  digni- 
fied and  exalted  by  it,  24-25 ;  it  is  an  almost  incredible 
trust,  26-27 ;  it  gives  us  the  making  of  our  own  char- 
acters, 31-34 ;  it  exercises  the  most  precious  of  all  privi- 
leges, 34-35 ;  part  of  a  general  power  of  self-control,  36- 
41. 

162 


INDEX 

Gain  got  by  making  another  lose,  103-109. 

Gambling :  its  immorality  analyzed,  103-105 ;  its  practice 
in  so-called  "  business,"  105-107. 

Geniality,  156. 

Golden  chart  of  character,  151-152. 

Golden  Rule,  the :  logically  deduced,  1-14 ;  its  antiquity, 
15-16 ;  what  might  be  if  all  followed  it,  28-30  ;  its  prin- 
ciple of  reciprocity,  97-98;  the  rule  in  its  commercial 
form,  99 ;  the  two  Golden  Rules  in  "  business,"  102-103 ; 
tracing  the  golden  chart  of  character,  151-152. 

Graciousness,  156. 

Gentlemen  and  Gentlewomen,  151-158. 

Habits :  their  power,  43-44 ;  their  cultivation,  43-49 ;  the 
terrible  fact  of,  49 ;  nature  offers  them  as  rewards  or 
penalties,  153. 

Health,  meaning  "  whole,"  83. 

Heaven-making  on  earth,  easy  contributions  to,  28-30. 

Helpfulness,  144-148. 

Hindu  teaching  of  the  Golden  Rule,  16. 

Honest  man,  the  truly,  88-91. 

Honesty  :  rules  for  it  not  furnished  by  laws  and  courts,  73- 
75 ;  examples  from  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  George  W.  Cur- 
tis, 75-78 ;  prevalence  of  honest  intentions,  79 ;  primary 
meaning  of  the  word,  86;  what  we  should  understand 
from  it,  88-91 ;  illustrated  in  Abraham  Lincoln,  91--92  ; 
degrees  of,  92-93;  estimated  by  Emerson,  93-95;  in 
"  business,"  96-109. 

Honor,  the  sense  of,  86-91. 

Hunting  animals  for  sport,  149-150. 

Ideal  of  character  and  culture,  151-158. 
Impatience,  as  habit,  48-49. 
Indolence,  as  habit,  48-49. 

163 


INDEX 

Integrity :  source  and  primary  meaning  of  the  word,  82-85. 
See,  also,  Honesty. 

James,  Professor  William :  on  the  training  of  habits,  46- 
47,  59-61. 

Knavery.    See  Fraud,  and  Honesty. 

Ladd,  Professor  G.  T. :  on  the  development  of  the  will,  61- 

62. 

Law,  mischievous  notions  of,  70-75. 
Law  of  motion  and  law  of  right  conduct,  strange  likeness 

between  the,  19-21. 
Legal  honesty  not  moral  honesty,  73-75 ;  exemplified  by  Sir 

Walter  Scott  and  George  W.  Curtis,  75-78. 
Lieber,  Dr.  Francis,  on  political  parties,  137-138. 
Lilliputians,  morals  of  the,  109-111. 
Lincoln,  Abraham :  his  honesty,  91-92. 
Line   of  right,   the:   figuratively  represented,  7-14;   the 

means  in  our  minds  for  marking  it,  17 ;  parallel  to  the 

line  marked  by  the  law  of  motion,  19-21. 
Lowell,   James  Russell  :  his  Commemoration  Ode  —  the 

poem  of  American  patriotism,  131-134. 

Mann,  Horace,  on  profit  and  loss,  114-115. 
Manners,  155-158. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  saying  of,  57. 
Memory,  habits  of,  47-48. 
Moral  freedom.     See  Freedom,  Moral. 
Moral  quality  in  conduct  given  only  by  the  freedom  of  it, 
23-25. 

"  Ought  to  "  and  "  ought  not  to  "  in  our  consciousness,  the, 
19-21. 

164 


INDEX 

Parties,  political,  to  be  used  as  instruments)  121-123 ;  Dr. 
Lieber  on,  137-138. 

Partisanship  as  a  habit,  the  mischief  of,  121-123;  Wash- 
ington's warning  against,  134-137. 

Passions,  become  tyrants  of  our  own  making,  43-44. 

Patriotism,  untrained,  124-125 ;  its  right  inspiration  and 
objects,  126-129 ;  Lowell's  poem  of,  131-134 ;  George  W. 
Curtis's  description  of,  138-140 ;  the  Spartan  idea  of,  140. 

Politeness,  155-158. 

Political  action  and  influence,  117-130 ;  the  line  of  right  in, 
129-130. 

Profit  and  loss,  Horace  Mann  on,  114-115. 

Puppets,  we  are  not,  39-40 ;  but  can  make  ourselves  pup- 
pet-like, 41-42. 

Keciprocity :  the  principle  of  the  Golden  Rule,  97-98. 

Responsibility  in  citizenship,  119-120. 

Right :  different  meanings  of  the  word,  1-2 ;  their  growth 
from  one  idea,  2-3 ;  figurativeness  of  the  moral  meaning, 
4-5 ;  leading  logically  to  the  conception  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  6-14  ;  the  natural  impulse  to  do  right,  17-21 ;  our 
freedom  to  obey  or  disobey  the  impulse,  21-23. 

Right  and  wrong :  illustrated  by  the  geometrical  straight 
line,  7-14 ;  summed  up  hi  the  Golden  Rule,  15-16 ;  the 
helps  and  resistances  in  our  nature,  18-21 ;  our  freedom 
of  choice  between  them,  22-25 ;  self -benefit  and  self -in- 
jury from,  31-34 ;  confused  notions  of,  63-75 ;  not  defined 
in  human  laws,  70-75 ;  Ruskin  on  the  ability  to  know, 
79-81;  in  "business,"  96-109;  in  citizenship,  117-130; 
in  "  charity,"  144-147 ;  in  "  sport,"  148-150. 

Right,  the  Line  of.     See  Line  of  Right. 

Rule  of  right,  the,  14-16,  28-29. 

Ruskin,  John :  on  everybody's  ability  to  know  right  from 
wrong,  79-81. 

165 


INDEX 

Scott,  Sir  Walter:  his  payment  of  a  great  debt  without 
compulsion  of  law,  75-77. 

Seeing,  habits  of  carefulness  and  carelessness  in,  47-48. 

Self-control.     See  Self-mastery. 

Self-government.     See  Self-mastery. 

Self -in  jury  of  wrong-doing,  31-34. 

Self-mastery,  our  help  in  it,  21-23  ;  the  trust  of  it,  26-27 ; 
the  something  in  us  which  empowers  it,  36-41 ;  never  im- 
possible, 42-43  ;  overcome  by  habits,  43-44  ;  example  of 
Socrates,  55-57 ;  of  Faraday,  58 ;  saying  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  57;  self-control  a  development,  59-61;  character 
rests  upon  it,  152-154. 

Slavery :  the  cause  of  changed  moral  notions  about,  66-70. 

Socrates,  self-mastery  of,  55-57. 

Spartan  patriotism,  140. 

Speculation  in  trade  and  speculative  gambling,  103-109. 

Speech,  habits  of,  45-46. 

Sport,  cruelty  as,  149-150. 

Straight  line,  a :  the  idea  of  it,  2-3 ;  the  moral  suggestion 
from  it,  4-6 ;  descriptions  of  it,  7-9 ;  moral  analogies,  9- 
14;  the  "line  of  right,"  14. 

Suavity,  156. 

Suffering,  the  claims  of,  144-149. 

Sutherland,  A. :  on  degrees  of  honesty,  92-93. 

Swift,  Dean,  on  fraud,  109-111. 

Sympathy,  as  habit,  48-49  ;  developed  by  civilization,  141- 
144. 

Thinking  :  habits  of  carefulness  and  carelessness  in,  47-48. 
Trade.     See  "  Business." 
Tribal  notions  of  Right  and  Wrong,  66-70. 
Trust  of  our  moral  freedom,  the,  26-27. 
Truthfulness:  .known  as  an  obligation  because  felt  as  a 
claim,  11-14 ;  nearly  all  rectitude  comprehended  in,  154. 
166 


INDEX 

Vanity,  as  habit,  48-49. 

Virtues,  moral :  Franklin's  list,  51-55. 

Voting,  obligations  to  be  considered  in,  117-130. 

Washington,  George :    his  warning  against  the  spirit  of 

party,  134-137. 
Whole,  the  word,  83-84. 
Will,  the  development  of,  61-62. 
Will,  Free.    See  Freedom,  Moral,  and  Self-mastery. 
Wrong :  figurative  meaning  of  the  word  in  its  moral  use, 

5-6  ;  source  of  the  idea  in  it,  6-14.    See,  also,  Right  and 

Wrong. 

Youth :  the  habit-making  time,  44-50. 


167 


"HIS  BOOK  IP 

UNW 


THE  LAST-  T\ATT! 


